Performing Bodies: Female Illness in Italian Literature and Cinema (1860-1920) 1683931327, 9781683931324

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Performing Bodies

The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Series in Italian Studies General Editor: Dr. Anthony Julian Tamburri, Dean of the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Series in Italian Studies is devoted to the publication of scholarly works on Italian literature, film, history, biography, art, and culture, as well as on intercultural connections, such as Italian-American Studies. On the Web at http://www.fdu.edu/fdupress Recent Titles Catherine Ramsey-Portolano, Performing Bodies: Female Illness in Italian Literature and Cinema (1860–1920) (2018). Ryan Calabretta-Sajder, Pasolini’s Lasting Impressions: Death, Eros, and Literary Enterprise in the Opus of Pier Paolo Pasolini (2018) Robert Pirro, Motherhood, Fatherland, and Primo Levi: The Hidden Groundwork of Agency in His Auschwitz Writings (2017) Theodora D. Patrona, Return Narratives: Ethnic Space in Late-Twentieth-Century Greek American and Italian American Literature (2017) Ursula Fanning, Italian Women’s Autobiographical Writings in the Twentieth Century: Constructing Subjects (2017) Gabriella Romani and Jennifer Burns (eds.), The Formation of a National Audience in Italy, 1750–1890: Readers and Spectators of Italian Culture (2017) Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka (eds.), Pirandello’s Visual Philosophy: Imagination and Thought across Media (2017) Elena Borelli, Giovanni Pascoli, Gabriele D’Annunzio, and the Ethics of Desire: Between Action and Contemplation (2017) Gregory M. Pell, Davide Rondoni: Art in the Movement of Creation (2016) Sharon Wood and Erica Moretti (eds.), Annie Chartres Vivanti: Transnational Politics, Identity, and Culture (2016) Flavio G. Conti and Alan R. Perry, Italian Prisoners of War in Pennsylvania: Allies on the Home Front, 1944–1945 (2016) Graziella Parati (ed.), Italy and the Cultural Politics of World War I (2016) Susan Amatangelo (ed.), Italian Women at War: Sisters in Arms from the Unification to the Twentieth Century (2016) Alberica Bazzoni, Emma Bond, and Katrin Wehling-Giorgi (eds.), Goliarda Sapienza in Context: Intertextual Relationships with Italian and European Culture (2016) Tommasina Gabriele, Dacia Maraini’s Narratives of Survival: (Re)Constructed (2015) Tullio Pagano, The Making and Unmaking of Mediterranean Landscape in Italian Literature: The Case of Liguria (2015) Ernest Ialongo, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti: The Artist and His Politics (2015) Francesco Pascuzzi and Bryan Cracchiolo (eds.), Dreamscapes in Italian Cinema (2015) Tamburri, Anthony Julian, Re-reading Italian Americana: Specificities and Generalities on Literature and Criticism (2013)

Performing Bodies Female Illness in Italian Literature and Cinema (1860–1920) Catherine Ramsey-Portolano

FAIRLEIGH DICKINSON UNIVERSITY PRESS Vancouver • Madison • Teaneck • Wroxton

Published by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Copublished by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB Copyright © 2018 by Catherine Ramsey-Portolano All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press gratefully acknowledges the support received for scholarly publishing from the Friends of FDU Press. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ramsey-Portolano, Catherine, author. Title: Performing bodies : female illness in Italian literature and cinema (1860-1920) / Catherine Ramsey-Portolano. Description: Madison : The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press ; Lanham : Copublished by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., 2018. | Series: The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press series in Italian studies | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017046136 (print) | LCCN 2017052957 (ebook) | ISBN 9781683931324 (Electronic) | ISBN 9781683931317 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Women in literature. | Sick in literature. | Italian literature--19th century--History and criticism. | Italian literature--20th century--History and criticism. | Women in motion pictures. | Sick in motion pictures. | Motion pictures--Italy--History and criticism. Classification: LCC PQ4055.W6 (ebook) | LCC PQ4055.W6 R36 2018 (print) | DDC 850.9/3522-dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017046136 TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Dedicated with love to Francesco, Thomas and James

Contents

Introduction 1 2 3 4

1

Denigrated Femininity in Fin de Siècle Italy Female Malady and Transgression in Italian Literature Feigning Sickness and Female Agency in Italian Literature Tigre reale and Malombra: The Diva and Cinematic Adaptations of Female Illness

7 37 67 93

Conclusion

121

References

125

Index

131

About the Author

137

vii

Introduction

In realtà un morbo grazioso, misterioso, che dà un carattere di sofferenza mite a una bella donna, è proprio quel che ci vuole per completare una seduzione. [. . .] Badate però che il morbo deve essere assolutamente nel tipo sentimentale o nevrotico, che deve essere pulito, che non deve far supporre nulla di poco poetico. [. . .] Con questa malattia è permesso di aver tutti i mali, di stare benissimo, di sentirsi morire e di rinascere dopo cinque minuti. [. . .] La nevrosi è la più alta invenzione feminile del nostro tempo. 1 [Actually, an attractive, mysterious disease, that gives a character of mild suffering to a beautiful woman, is really what is needed to complete a seduction. . . . Please note, however, that the disease should be absolutely of the sentimental or neurotic type, it must be clean, it must not allow one to suppose anything less than poetic. . . . With this illness it is permissible to have all ailments, to feel very well, to feel like one is dying and then feel reborn after five minutes. . . . Neurosis is the greatest female invention of our time.] 2

In this 1883 article from the literary journal Capitan Fracassa, Italian novelist and journalist Matilde Serao rather jokingly reveals how female neurosis had become, in late nineteenth-century Italy, not only commonplace but an essential element of a woman’s appeal. The author addresses the issue of whether the condition is feigned or real, ultimately presenting it as a form of behavior that women of the time had chosen to adopt. In the following passage from Serao’s first novel Cuore infermo (1881), the writer had also linked female appeal to illness, confirming her opinion on the artificiality of such behavior while adding insight into how it had emerged in reaction to changing characteristics in the male personality: “Te lo ripeto, non si resta molto tempo presso la D’Aragona, senza amarla. È proprio lei la donna moderna, la donna appassionata, strana, forse superficiale, delicata, ammalata, nervosa, capricciosa, dalle apparenze varie che tutti seducono; la donna 1

2

Introduction

fatta per piacere alla inquieta e raffinata gioventù moderna” [I repeat, one does not spend much time around D’Aragona without loving her. She really is the modern woman, the passionate woman, strange, maybe superficial, delicate, sick, nervous, capricious, with changing appearances that seduce all; the woman made to please the restless and refined modern youth] (Serao 1988, 113). Locating the seductiveness of the “modern woman” in a combination of traits, such as passionate and nervous, sick and capricious, Serao describes her as “made to please,” again suggesting her condition as affectation. Are Serao’s representations of femininity the artistic counterpart to widespread theories on female susceptibility to nervous disorders, confirming how women were categorized by patriarchal society? Or, by emphasizing artificiality, do Serao’s writings indicate how illness could function as a tool of agency for women in turn-of-the-century Italy? 3 Did feigning illness serve as a type of survival skill for women in late nineteenth-century Italy, allowing them to manipulate categorizations of themselves as fragile and diseased? Theories on women’s physical and mental weakness thrived within late nineteenth-century European culture, dominated by positivism and Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Female biological inferiority was, in fact, a logical conclusion of the natural selection worldview, which posited the male species as exposed to far greater selective pressures, such as competition for mates and food, and therefore more evolved physically and intellectually than the female species. Darwinist theories found support in positivism, a philosophy founded on detached observation of objective data, empirical verification of theories and rejection of metaphysical notions. The justification for female inferiority presented in the works of Darwinist and positivist thinkers was often based on the physical evidence offered by the female body. In The Dark Side of Charles Darwin, Jerry Bergman suggests that as a result of Darwin’s ideas “scientists were inspired to use biology, ethnology and primatology to build support for the conclusion that women had a ‘manifestly inferior and irreversibly subordinate’ status to men” (2011, 247). A common tenet of evolutionist and positivist arguments was that both female inferiority and predisposition to nervous disorders were linked to women’s reproductive organs and functions. 4 In Shattered Nerves: Doctors, Patients, and Depression in Victorian England, Janet Oppenheim suggests this as a way of attempting to resolve the contradiction between evolutionist and positivist arguments on women’s halted development, as explanation for their inferiority, and scientific justifications for women’s over-developed nervous system, as explanation for their heightened sensibility and excitability: There was no way to reconcile these two lines of thought. The best that the medical profession could do was to reiterate that a woman’s nervous instability was closely related to her reproductive system. In tracing female nervous-

Introduction

3

ness to the uterus or ovaries, doctors were diverting attention from the possibility, implicit in much of their writing, that woman’s brain might, in fact, be highly complex and fully evolved. (1991, 193)

It is interesting to note also that although the maternal role provided the basis for female denigration within scientific circles, it was often exalted socially as women’s highest mission. In most cases, however, maternity was used as justification against women seeking any other form of fulfillment, such as that found in the workplace. In the works of Italian fin de siècle writers examined in this study, from Iginio Ugo Tarchetti to Sibilla Aleramo, female malady in its various forms is almost always linked to women’s failure to fulfill or identify with the roles of wife and mother. Given the attention within fin de siècle European scientific circles to female inferiority and nervous disorders, it should come as no surprise that we also find, in the same period, a widespread literary portrayal of female malady. In novels of the period, women were commonly depicted as suffering from an array of ailments, from those of a physical nature, such as tuberculosis, to mental and nervous disorders, such as madness and hysteria. The literary representation of the female hysteric, for example, in the works of authors such as Henry James, Charlotte Brontë, Honoré de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, Henrik Ibsen, and Iginio Ugo Tarchetti, to mention just a few, confirm Elaine Showalter’s affirmation that in Europe “by the end of the [nineteenth] century, ‘hysterical’ had become almost interchangeable with ‘feminine’ in literature, where it stood for all extremes of emotions” (1985, 129). Hysteria performed a range of functions in the novels of the abovementioned authors, such as from representing the psychological consequence for women who failed to adhere to prescribed roles and modes of conduct or symbolizing the expression of their repressed sexual desire. Patriarchal society’s tendency to view female rebellion to domesticity and sexual passivity as pathological found expression in the classification, within both literary and scientific texts of the period, of rebellious women as hysterical, as Showalter notes: “During an era when patriarchal culture felt itself under attack by its rebellious daughters, one obvious defense was to label women campaigning for access to the universities, the professions, and the vote as mentally disturbed, and of all the nervous disorders of the fin de siècle, hysteria was the most strongly identified with the feminist movement” (1985, 145). Luciano Curreri notes that the portrayal of female malady in Italian fin de siècle literature can be seen to confirm traditional conceptions of women as bearers of disorder and sin 5 : “in letteratura l’assunzione della donna come luogo narrativo privilegiato per dire la malattia è un modo alquanto tradizionale per ribadire l’antico primato negativo del femminile” [in literature, making woman the privileged narrative setting for illness is a rather traditional way of reiterating the ancient negative primacy of the female] (1992, 57). He

4

Introduction

notes that it can also be attributed to the “lento ma tangibile mutamento di rotta” [slow but tangible change of course] (Curreri 1992, 57) that took place within society due to the emerging women’s emancipist movement. It is undoubtedly no coincidence that the abundance of scientific theories and literary portrayals of female inferiority and illness in fin de siècle European society coincided with the emergence of the feminist movement, whose aims threatened to disrupt the established social order. Nineteenth-century emancipists across Europe claimed women’s mental and social equality to men as justification for their political and legislative equality. My analysis of the representation of female illness in Italian fin de siècle literature recognizes two general categories: those novels which posit illness as the consequence and even castigation for transgressive behavior as opposed to other works which portray illness as a chosen form of behavior for women. In the first group of novels, illness functions to reveal the pressures and limitations to which women were subjected. It is important to note, however, that the women of these novels nonetheless emerge as victims, for although such works bring to light situations of social injustice, the female characters portrayed are overcome by societal expectations and illness is the expression of their submission. In the second group of novels, the portrayal of illness as a form of behavior that women have chosen to adopt, denoting determination and willfulness rather than passivity and weakness, casts a different perspective on the function of illness. Feigning illness functions as a type of self-mastery and therefore as a form of female agency, rather than subjection, by granting women the means to control their own bodies. Oppenheim notes that “[w]illful women, embodying the denial of womanhood, were objects of loathing, but also of fear, because they challenged medical authority” (1991, 210). Women who willfully own their illness are threatening figures for the power and control they attempt to exert within their environments. The representation of female malady within fin de siècle Italian literature ultimately presents women as either victims or agents. Female illness is present as either a condition that marks women as transgressors of the social order or as an indicator of women’s empowerment. Women’s manipulation of sickness represents a way for them to take control of their bodies and lives in the only manner allowed them for the time. Fabio GirelliCarasi notes the difficulty for women in developing agency and autonomy in fin de siècle society: “In this historical period, to solve a conflict outwardly, by aggressive and self-asserting behavior, was close to impossible for women. To be weak and sick however was considered basic to feminine nature” (1989, 280). This study examines how female characters who adopt and manipulate illness resist male control and evade classification as victims. In Actresses and Whores: On Stage and in Society, Kristen Pullen argues that “[w]hat happens onstage and in print is not merely a reflection of life, but also a site for contesting and legitimating dominant culture” (2005, 7).

Introduction

5

The representation of the diseased female body as consequence and punishment for transgression confirms patriarchal culture’s categorization of women as destined for the roles of wife, mother, and daughter, and at the same time reflects contemporary anxiety over shifting ideologies of gender in fin de siècle Italy. On the other hand, the portrayal of female illness as performed and therefore as a form of agency contests traditional representation of women as victims. After examining the fin de siècle Italian literary portrayal of female malady, this study will go on to explore how it contributed to the creation of a cultural and artistic ideal of femininity that dominated Italian cinema of the 1910s in the figure of the diva. Mario Verdone notes, regarding the influence of decadent literature on early Italian cinema, that “[n]el mondo e nella letteratura del decadentismo, di cui dominio essenziale resta Il piacere dannunziano, il cinema delle dive italiane del ‘muto’, e tutta la loro recitazione, troveranno abbondante materia di ispirazione e di imitazione” [the silent films of the Italian divas, together with their acting, found abundant material for inspiration and imitation in the decadent world and its literature, the essential domain of which remains D’Annunzio’s Il piacere] (Verdone 1993, 20). 6 Mary P. Wood suggests the fin de siècle cultural genesis of the diva in Italian cinema when she writes that “divas encapsulated a combination of feminine models from the previous century and the energetic impulses of the new one” (2005, 156). I will examine the diva’s origin in nineteenth-century literary and theatrical models of femininity, but also the way in which this figure projected future models of behavior for women of the time, making the diva a prototype of female emancipation. Specifically, the role of female illness will be explored in the cinematic adaptations of the novels Tigre reale (1916) and Malombra (1917), where it serves a dual function: that of bringing attention to the figure of the diva and freeing her from the negative connotations surrounding the social upheaval she represents. Drawing from Laura Mulvey’s discussion in “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” on the roles traditionally assigned to male and female figures within mainstream cinema, I argue that diva films provide an early example in Italian film history of the female gaze by “structuring the film around a main controlling figure with whom the spectator can identify” (Mulvey 1989, 20). This study addresses the above-mentioned issues by offering, in chapter 1, an overview of women’s status in nineteenth-century society as well as contemporary theories on female inferiority and nervous disorders, especially hysteria. Chapter 2 presents a reading of those novels which present female illness as the inevitable consequence, and at times punishment, for women who have steered away from traditional female roles. Chapter 3 explores those novels in which female malady functions as a means of agency for women, a condition they have chosen to adopt to manipulate existing notions of femininity to their advantage. Chapter 4 investigates the represen-

6

Introduction

tation of female illness in the early cinematic adaptations of two novels discussed in this study as a way of examining how the new artistic medium of cinema, which privileged the figure of the diva between 1910 and 1920, portrayed female sickness. This volume follows a representation of femininity that goes from fin de siècle Italian literary portrayals of illness to the cinematic intertwining of sickness and seduction in the figure of the diva to demonstrate the pivotal role played by the female body and its biological functions and malfunctions. NOTES 1. Matilde Serao, “Patologia acquatica.” Capitan Fracassa, IV.191 (1883): 1. Serao used the pseudonym Niquita for this and other articles, generally of a satirical nature, published in the journal. Another example is the article dated July 24, 1883, entitled “Fisiologia acquatica” in which she ironically refers to “Le Bevitrici” as female drinkers of water from the famous Acqua Acetosa spring. 2. Unless otherwise noted, all translations into English are mine. 3. It is important to note, however, that many of Serao’s writings did not encourage women to assume unconventional behavior. She devoted many of her pages, both in journalism and fiction, to enlightening women on the risk of being marginalized in society. Ursula J. Fanning notes however that “Serao never plots or envisages an actual revision of the patriarchal social structures that oppress her characters, but her very dissent from, and criticism of, the traditional restrictions she represents in her writing may well be indicative of a repressed desire for a different kind of social order” (Fanning 1994, 390). This apparent ambivalence was not uncommon among many women writers of the time. For example, the negative attitude of fellow writer Neera concerning the emerging feminist movement appears to contradict the denunciatory tone used in some of her novels regarding women’s condition in society, revealing perhaps the complexities for women writers of the time in grappling with their roles as women in the male-dominated literary field of the time. Alessandra Briganti notes that Serao’s negative attitude toward the female emancipist movement corresponded “al cliché professionale prescelto al quale si affidava [. . .] il destino e il successo della giornalista e la sua possibilità di continuare a operare in quel campo di attività” [to the chosen professional cliché that accounted for . . . the female journalist’s destiny and success and her possibility to continue to work in that field of employment] (Briganti 1988, 193). 4. From ancient times, in fact, women’s bodies have been considered impure due to conditions associated with reproductive functions, especially menstruation. Leviticus 15:19 in the Old Testament, for example, refers to the impurity of women’s bodies during menstruation. 5. The negative portrayal of femininity has distant roots in Western culture. The biblical figure of Eve and the mythological figure of Lilith are two examples of how women have, since ancient times, been cast as bearers of sin whose actions bring negative consequences for their community. 6. D’Annunzio collaborated in the production of several films, most notably Cabiria (1914), for which he wrote the intertitles. It is interesting to note that the 1915 film Il fuoco, by director Giovanni Pastrone and starring the diva Pina Menichelli, although taking its name from D’Annunzio’s 1900 novel, bears no resemblance to the plot of the novel. Gian Piero Brunetta discusses the importance of D’Annunzio’s involvement in cinema, starting with the film Cabiria, in elevating artistically the new genre, and how this influence extended even to the choice of titles, such as Il fuoco and La serpe, which evoke Dannunzian titles. Il fuoco’s director Piero Fosca (pseudonym for Giovanni Pastrone) had worked previously with D’Annunzio in the making of Cabiria. (See Brunetta 1993, 97–103.)

Chapter One

Denigrated Femininity in Fin de Siècle Italy

Discussion of female inferiority featured prominently within late nineteenthcentury European scientific and intellectual circles: in the works, for example, of sociologists such as Auguste Comte, evolutionary theorists such as Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer, anthropologists such as Cesare Lombroso, neurologists such as Paul Julius Moebius, and philosophers such as Otto Weininger. Most of these thinkers based female mental inferiority on physiological deficiency, often comparing women to children, deformed men, or lower forms on the evolutionary scale. The alignment of women with irrationality and emotion, in contrast to men’s command of reason and logical analysis, goes back to Aristotelian theory, 1 and assertions of female inferiority have circulated for at least as long. However, in the second half of the nineteenth century the apparently undeniable truth of evolutionary biology lent authority to theories concerning the underdeveloped and inferior female brain. Before Darwin’s evolutionary theory, however, positivism had already identified the notion of female inferiority as justification for women’s subordination within society. In the seminal work Cours de philosophie positive, published between 1830 and 1842, Auguste Comte, considered the founder of sociology and positivism, presented his ideas on the application of scientific methods to the study and improvement of society, proposing positivism as a scientific philosophy in which knowledge is based on natural phenomena and their properties and relations as verified by empirical sciences. 2 For Comte, natural sciences provided the foundation for the understanding of human reality in its historical and social realms. Asserting the natural inferiority of women in the chapter of Cours de philosophie positive dedicated to the study of the family, Comte addressed the issue of the subordination of the 7

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Chapter 1

sexes within the family and constituted the family as a social structure that relied upon female inferiority. In the following passage, the philosopher’s observations on female nature supported conventional roles for women in nineteenth-century European society: È infatti incontestabile . . . che le donne sono in generale tanto superiori agli uomini per un più grande slancio naturale della simpatia e della socievolezza, quanto sono ad essi inferiori per intelligenza e ragione. Così, la loro funzione specifica ed essenziale, nell’economia fondamentale della famiglia e di conseguenza della società, deve essere naturalmente di modificare incessantemente, con una più sensibile sollecitazione immediata dell’istinto sociale, il cammino generale sempre primitivamente stabilito, necessariamente, dalla ragione troppo fredda e troppo grossolana che caratterizza abitualmente il sesso preponderante. (1967, 353) [It is in fact indisputable . . . that women in general are superior to men for a greater natural impulse of congeniality and sociality, as much as they are inferior for intelligence and reason. Therefore, their specific and essential function in the fundamental organization of the family and consequently that of society, must logically be that of modifying incessantly, with a more instant sensitive solicitation of the social instinct, mankind’s general progress primitively established, necessarily, by the overly cold and coarse reason that habitually characterizes the dominant sex.]

By exalting women’s emotional and sentimental traits while limiting their rational and intellectual qualities, Comte confirmed women’s mental inferiority to men and presented their role within society as secondary and complementary to that held by men. By presenting women as incapable of fulfilling the leadership roles carried out by men in society, the positivist author inevitably linked and confined women to their role within the family as wives and mothers. Comte denied, in fact, the newly emerging feminist claims for equality, which he defined “chimeriche declamazioni rivoluzionarie sulla pretesa eguaglianza dei due sessi” [illusory revolutionary claims for the demanded equality between the two sexes] (1967, 350), by asserting that the female gender finds itself “come necessariamente costituito, comparativamente all’altro, in una specie di continuo stato d’infanzia che l’allontana maggiormente, sotto gli aspetti più importanti, dal tipo ideale della razza” [necessarily constructed, comparatively to the other, in a type of continuous state of infancy which increasingly distances it, under the most important aspects, from the ideal type of the race] (1967, 351). In Cours de philosophie positive, Comte provided the methodological basis for a naturalistic perspective in science and his idea that all sciences develop in three stages (the theological stage, the metaphysical stage, and the positive stage, in which scientists abandon the search for supernatural causes and focus on the discovery of the correlations between antecedent causes and

Denigrated Femininity in Fin de Siècle Italy

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subsequent effects) influenced Darwin, as the scientist’s reference to Comte in notes from his 1832–1836 journey on board the H.M.S. Beagle reveal: “Now it is not a little remarkable that the fixed laws of nature should be universally thought to be the will of a superior being; whose natures can only be rudely traced out. When one sees this, one suspects that our will may be arise from as fixed laws of organization.—M. le Comte argues against all contrivance—it is what my views tend to” (1838, 69e–70e). In 1859 Darwin published his theory of evolution and natural selection in the groundbreaking work On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life, a work which revolutionized predominant conceptions within not only scientific but also philosophical and religious thought of the time. Although not the primary objective of his studies, the principle of female inferiority emerges as a logical conclusion of the natural and sexual selection processes. In The Descent of Man (1871) Darwin argued, for example, that men were exposed to far greater selective pressures than women, especially in war, and competition for mates, food, and clothing, while, on the other hand, women were protected from evolutionary selection by norms which dictated that men were to provide for and protect women and children. As a result, according to Darwin, natural selection operated far more actively on males, producing their superiority in virtually all skill areas. For example, Darwin observed that women possessed increased “powers of intuition, of rapid perception, and perhaps of imitation” with respect to men, however he also noted that these were “characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state of civilization” (1871, 326–27). Furthermore, because of the influence of their maternal instincts, women were seen to be more tender and less selfish, another factor which led them to be less competitive and ambitious and therefore, ultimately, less successful than their male counterparts. In fact, Darwin concluded, the “chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shewn by man attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than woman can attain—whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands” (1871, 327). These factors and men’s proven mastery in areas ranging from poetry to science demonstrated, according to the evolutionist, that “the average standard of mental power in man must be above that of woman” (1871, 327). Oppenheim notes that “Darwin’s contribution, elaborated by Spencer, 3 was to explain why women generally lacked the mental capacities of men, why they were incapable of abstract thought, sustained analytic reasoning, or even great creative works of the imagination” (1991, 182). Darwinist and positivist ideas on female deficiency had a significant impact on fin de siècle society and science, authorizing the use of biology, ethnology, and primatology in support of specific theories of women’s inferiority and subordinate status. The Darwinist concept of male superiority

10

Chapter 1

rested upon the notion of female inferiority as part of a natural evolutionary process rather than as part of a divine or social order, and naturalism was essential to the female inferiority doctrine, justifying women’s subordinate place within society. In “Darwin and the Descent of Women,” Evelleen Richards contends that Darwin’s conviction in the purely biological foundation for his theory was based on “his theoretically directed contention that human mental and moral characteristics had arisen by natural evolutionary processes which predisposed him to ground these characteristics in nature rather than nurture—to insist on the biological basis of mental and moral differences as the raw material on which natural and sexual selection might operate” (1983, 97). Darwin and others posited women’s inferiority and subordination within society as deriving from biology, overlooking cultural factors, such as family environment, constraining social roles, and the fact that relatively few occupational and intellectual opportunities existed for women. Such motives were recognized instead by John Stuart Mill in the essay The Subjection of Women (1869): “I deny that any one knows or can know, the nature of the two sexes, as long as they have only been seen in their present relation to one another. [. . .] What is now called the nature of women is an eminently artificial thing—the result of forced repression in some directions, unnatural stimulation in others” (1970, 148). Oppenheim notes, in fact, that Darwin’s 1871 publication of The Descent of Man was “received as a resounding rebuttal of the environmentalist position forcefully argued by J. S. Mill in The Subjection of Women (1869)” (1991, 183). In the Italian context, fin de siècle physician and anthropologist Cesare Lombroso was strongly influenced by positivism and social Darwinism. In the same years as Darwin and Spencer, Lombroso published his studies on physiognomy, criminality, and social deviance in works such as Genio e follia (1864), La medicina legale della alienazioni mentali studiata col meduto esperimentale (1865), and L’uomo delinquente (1876). A. M. Cavalli Pasini notes how Lombroso’s publications profoundly impacted scientific and cultural debates of the period and constituted one of Italy’s principal contributions to European positivism, making it a forerunner in scientific and philosophical debates on the link between the physical and the psychical (1982, 86). Lombroso studied and interpreted forms of abnormality and social deviance as dependent upon genetically inherited traits, determining biological causes for mental illness and regression. In his 1893 work La donna delinquente, la prostituta e la donna normale, Lombroso turned his attention specifically toward women, proposing statistics from his study of the differences between male and female exemplars in the animal world to support the theory that women were physically as well as morally and mentally inferior to men. Lombroso presented theories of women’s deficiency as fact, based on concrete evidence provided by the female body, specifically through craniology, the study of skull size. Oppenheim

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notes that for “several decades beginning in the late 1860s, nothing was believed to underscore the biological basis of female mental inadequacy more resoundingly than craniology” (1991, 185). Lombroso’s theories legitimized the singling out of those considered different by bourgeois standards. The prostitute, the criminal and the mentally insane performed such roles within society, Lombroso’s theories suggested, because their physiological and biological constitution, which determined their capacity for moral and intelligent behavior, made them incapable of fulfilling other roles in society. However, even Lombroso’s analysis of “normal” women placed the female sex in an inferior category with regard to men on the evolutionary scale: La donna normale ha molti caratteri che l’avvicinano al selvaggio, al fanciullo e quindi al criminale (irosità, vendetta, gelosie, vanità), e altri diametralmente opposti che neutralizzano i primi, ma che le impediscono di avvicinarsi nella sua condotta quanto l’uomo a quell’equilibrio tra diritti e doveri, egoismo e altruismo, che è il termine dell’evoluzione morale. (1915, 115) [The normal woman has many characteristics that bring her close to the savage, to the young child and therefore to the criminal (quick temper, revenge, jealously, vanity), and other diametrically opposed qualities that neutralize the first ones, but which prevent her from obtaining as much as man the equilibrium in her behavior between rights and duties, egoism and altruism, which is the end result of moral evolution.]

In suggesting that women’s physical constitution does not allow the balance achieved by men between rights and duties, Lombroso again proposed that women’s nature is dominated and limited by biology. Lombroso also explained women’s moral inferiority through biological differences and weaknesses, arguing, for example, that women’s cruelty, deceitful nature, and inclination to take revenge derived from their physical weakness, which deprived them of an alternative course of action. It was principally, however, the supremacy of the maternal instinct in the female nature that excluded women’s capacity for intellectual and artistic activity. Lombroso explained, in fact, women’s intellectual inferiority through the predominance of maternal and reproductive functions in the female nature: “c’è un antagonismo tra le funzioni di riproduzione e le intellettuali” [there is competition between the reproductive and intellectual functions], explaining further that “la intelligenza in tutto il regno animale varia in ragione inversa della fecondità” [intelligence in the whole animal kingdom varies inversely to fertility] (1915, 132). In women, according to Lombroso, the reproductive and the intellectual spheres could not coexist because the predominance of the maternal instinct excluded all other inclinations, even those of a sexual nature: “la sensibilità materna prevale sugli affetti e la sensibilità sessuale” [the maternal sensibilities prevail on the affections and sexual sensibilities]

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(1915, 92). Lombroso linked female repression of personal desires and aspirations to a process of Darwinian natural selection: “la selezione sessuale diede la preferenza non alle donne più forti, ma alle più graziose e quindi più miti, mettendo in onore la grazia e le doti morali, che alla grazia, per associazione, si accompagnano” [sexual selection gives preference not to the strongest women, but to the most gracious and therefore most gentle, exalting grace and moral qualities, which accompany grace by association] (1915, 85). In such a way, Lombroso’s theories provided scientific support for the repression of female desire and aspirations that was typically asked of nineteenthcentury women, who were often instructed to suppress personal concerns and aspirations, particularly those of a sexual nature. Elaine Showalter notes, in fact, the risks for women of the time in exhibiting a strong sexuality: “sexual appetite was considered one of the chief symptoms of moral insanity in women” (1977, 120). It is interesting to note that Lombroso acknowledged women’s mental inferiority as partially due also to social factors: “È innegabile che di questo sviluppo inferiore dell’intelletto sia stata concausa la inerzia forzata degli organi a cui l’uomo ha costretto la donna” [It is undeniable that the forced inactivity of organs to which man has obligated woman has contributed to this inferior development of the intellect] (1915, 131). The scientest provided, however, a scientific and Darwinist explanation and justification for this: “Ma sarebbe un errore indicare questa cagione come artificiale, mentre è anche essa naturale e rientra in quel fenomeno generale della participazione maggiore, in tutta la scala animale del maschio alla lotta per la vita” [But it would be wrong to indicate this cause as artificial, because it is natural and part of that general phenomenon of increased participation, in all of the animal kingdom, of the male’s fight for existence] (1915, 131). In this way, Lombroso condoned what he refers to in the preface to La donna delinquente, la prostituta e la donna normale as the tyrannies to which women had been and were still subjected, affirming that women’s social condition resulted from their biological constitution. Lombroso also concluded, like Comte, Darwin, and others, that women’s oppressed condition is part of a natural order, which in turn determines the social order. Lombroso suggested even a classical basis for his argument on woman’s fundamental inferiority when he argued that “[l]a donna, dunque, sente meno, come pensa meno, e così anche pel sesso si conferma la gran massima di Aristotele: nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu” [woman, therefore, feels less, as she also thinks less, and so also for the sexes Aristotle’s principle is confirmed: nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu] (1915, 57), confirming a long-held belief in female deficiency. 4 It is important to note that theories regarding woman’s inferiority were not limited to circulation in scientific journals as the topic was debated also in literary and cultural circles. For example, in addition to journals of a

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scientific nature, Lombroso published his ideas on the pages of literary and political journals, such as Nuova Antologia, L’Idea Liberale, and Vita Internazionale. Lombroso’s collaboration with L’Idea Liberale, a Milanese journal whose articles ranged from political to social to literary in nature and whose contributors included literary figures such as Neera, Emilio De Marchi, and Vittoria Aganoor, allows us to better understand the exchange of ideas between representatives from various sectors of late nineteenth-century society. The works of other scientists and philosophers dedicated to the topic of female inferiority, such as German neurologist Paul Julius Moebius’s The Mental Inferiority of Women (1900) and Austrian philosopher Otto Weininger’s Sex and Character (1903), reveal how the topic spread across Europe and into the twentieth century. Like Lombroso and others before him, Moebius examined women’s physiological deficiency as the basis for their mental and moral inferiority: “[d]al punto di vista somatico, [. . .] la donna è qualche cosa di mezzo fra il fanciullo e l’uomo, e lo è altresì, almeno per molti riguardi, anche dal punto di vista psichico” [from the somatic point of view . . . woman is something between a child and a man, and she is also, at least for many aspects, from the psychic point of view] (1998, 16). Moebius asserted that women’s mental inferiority was not only a proven fact, again based on evidence such as brain size, but part of a natural order upon which social structures of the time necessarily rested, as the following passage reveals: [s]e noi vogliamo una donna, la quale possa adempiere bene al suo compito materno, è necessario ch’essa non abbia un cervello mascolino. Se si potesse far in modo che le facoltà femminili raggiungessero uno sviluppo uguale a quello delle facoltà degli uomini, ne verrebbero atrofizzati gli organi materni e noi ci troveremmo d’innanzi un repugnante e inutile androgino. (1998, 27) [if we want a woman who can fulfill her maternal task well, it is necessary that she not have a masculine brain. If it were possible for female capabilities to reach an equal development to those of men, the maternal organs would waste away and we would be left with a repugnant and useless androgynous creature.]

Recalling Lombroso’s ideas on “la inerzia forzata degli organi a cui l’uomo ha costretto la donna” [the forced inactivity of organs to which man has obligated woman], Moebius suggested that women have always fulfilled the maternal role within society not solely because their mental and emotional capabilities made them adapt for it, but because society has always demanded it. Moebius credited Lombroso and Ferrero’s La donna delinquente, la prostituta e la donna normale for providing society with the best answer to the question on whether women and men are equal: “essi raggiungono ampi-

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amente la prova della inferiorità mentale della donna” [they amply prove the mental inferiority of women] (1998, 16). Furthermore, according to the German writer, women who attempted to break into men’s privileged terrain of intellectual and creative professions, such as that of writer for instance, did so without contributing anything new to society: “Anche le scrittrici di novelle, le quali pure, in parte, narrano in forma attraente, e le pur rare poetesse, si muovono sempre per vie già tracciate e pullulano qua e là coll’impronta del conio inciso dagli uomini” [Even women writers, who, to some extent, narrate in an attractive form, and the rare women poets, always travel already beaten paths and proliferate here and there by following routes already laid out by men] (1998, 24). Moebius denied women even the nobility of the maternal role by arguing that female mental deficiency was in perfect relation to the complexity of the role that mothers performed in society. Women, biologically and socially constructed to fulfill a specific role in society, that of mother, were consequently unable to successfully fulfill other roles. Austrian philosopher Otto Weininger’s Sex and Character examined the superiority in the human personality of masculine characteristics, as opposed to those defined by the author as feminine, claiming that “[i]n pratica non esiste né l’uomo né la donna, ma, per così dire, la qualità maschile e quella femminile” [basically neither man nor woman exists, but rather, the masculine quality and the feminine one] (1992, 41). In his study, the widespread circulation of which is documented by twenty-two editions in eighteen years, Weininger did not directly categorize women as inferior; however the traits he associated with them, such as passivity, immorality, sensuality, egoism and lack of creativity, were decidedly negative. Geniality, on the other hand, was qualified as a masculine quality from which “pure” women, those who did not possess any masculine qualities, would necessarily always be excluded. Women who had managed to excel within society, for example George Eliot and George Sand, had done so, Weininger affirmed, because of a predominance of male qualities in their personality; however the masculinity of these women was revealed not only in their ability to succeed but also in their facial and bodily features, such as “fronte vasta e possente,” “viso duro e intelligente,” or “capigliatura scarsissima” [wide and imposing forehead, tough and intelligent face, or scarce amount of hair] (1992, 109). Like Comte, Darwin, Lombroso, Moebius, and others, Weininger also associated intellectual and rational traits with men and physical, instinctive and sensual qualities with women, subordinating women to a relationship of inequality with men: “[l]a relazione fra uomo e donna altro non è che quella fra soggetto e oggetto. La donna cerca il proprio compimento come oggetto. [. . .] La donna non vuol esser trattata come un soggetto. [. . .] Il suo bisogno è piuttosto di venir desiderata quale corpo e di venir posseduta quale proprietà altrui” [the relationship between man and woman is none other than that between subject and object. Woman looks for her completion as object. . . .

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Woman does not want to be treated like a subject. . . . Her need is rather to be desired as a body and to be possessed as the property of others] (1992, 373). The proposals of the thinkers outlined above lead us to agree with Showalter’s conclusion in The Female Malady that “[b]y nature, then, woman was constituted to be ‘the helpmate and companion of man’; her innate qualities of mind were formed to make her man’s complement rather than his equal” (1985, 123). FEMALE NERVOUS DISORDERS While theories circulated within fin de siècle Europe on female physical and mental inferiority, much attention was also dedicated to the tendency of women to be inflicted with maladies of a nervous nature. Women were believed to suffer much more frequently than men from conditions that were classified at that time as nervous disorders, which included everything from headaches and fidgets to insanity and melancholia. The term neurosis, considered by many scientists the result of modern life’s increasingly frenetic rhythms, was first used and defined in the late eighteenth century by British physician William Cullen, whose classification of neuroses “embraced all disorders presumed to involve the nervous system, but occurring without any evidence whatsoever of structural change, inflammation, or lesion” (Oppenheim 1991, 8). In the late nineteenth century, American physician George Miller Beard’s name is inextricably linked to studying the condition of neurasthenia, or nervous exhaustion, and his theory of nervous energy, the term used to refer to the health of the nervous system. According to Beard, if this energy was depleted or abused, the person fell into nervous exhaustion and its debilitating conditions. The prescribed cure was withdrawal from the pressures of urban life, rest and a simple, healthy lifestyle. For many women, however, the rest cure represented the ultimate confinement within the domestic sphere, the very source for many of their nervous exhaustion. The 1892 short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, for example, narrated the author’s struggle to regain her mental stability after enduring the rest cure, providing one of the best known and most scathing condemnations of the treatment. The term nevrosismo [neurosis] was popularized in Italy by anthropologist and writer Paolo Mantegazza, who declared in Il secolo nevrosico (1887) the novelty of the term “perché serve ad esprimere una cosa che non esisteva, od era così rara da non fermar l’attenzione degli osservatori” [because it serves to express something that did not exist, or was so rare that it did not catch the attention of observers] (1995, 6). For Mantegazza, neuroses indicated all those illnesses whose cause could be found in the nerves, although the exact nature of the illness was not clear, as Mantegazza notes further: “Pei

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medici le nevrosi son malattie del sistema nervoso, delle quali si ignora la natura intima e l’alterazione materiale, che deve senza dubbio accompagnarle” [For doctors neuroses are diseases of the nervous system, of which we do not know the intimate nature and physical alternation, which undoubtedly accompanies them] (1995, 6). The origin and nature of this condition had been explained in the entry dedicated to neurosis in Mantegazza and Neera’s Dizionario d’igiene per le famiglie (1881), which also listed the type of ailments associated with it, from mood swings to convulsions and even forms of paralysis: 5 Lo sviluppo straordinario che vanno prendendo i nervi di queste due ultime generazioni impensierisce a buon diritto. Quasi tutte le malattie si presentano adesso col carattere nervoso, il quale maschera molte volte il carattere vero o impedisce per molte altre di ricorrere ai mezzi radicali. Il nervosismo assume tutte le forme, intacca tutti gli organi, esalta e deprime; prende una persona nel pieno rigoglio delle sue forze e la prostra con convulsioni terribili; le toglie la facoltà di camminare, di lavorare, di pensare, la rende impotente, e per colmo di tortura le lascia la sensibilità profonda della sua disgrazia. (1985, 236–37) [The extraordinary development that nerves have been taking in these two last generations rightfully worries. Almost all diseases present themselves now with a nervous character, which many times masks the true character, or, in other cases, prevents one from resorting to radical ways. Neurosis takes all forms; it damages, exalts, and overcomes all organs; it takes a person in the prime of their forces and afflicts them with terrible convulsions; it takes away the ability to walk, work, think, it makes one helpless, and to top it all off, it leaves the afflicted with a deep awareness of their misfortune.]

Mantegazza’s understanding of the cause of nervous disorders was tied to scientific improvements and the desire for advancement characteristic of the period, which, the authors of the Dizionario argued, resulted in negative and degenerative effects on men and women of the time: Noi apparteniamo ad una razza esaurita, siamo i figli di coloro che hanno domata la natura, che hanno dettate le loro leggi al mondo—ma i figli non raccoglieranno i frutti delle fatiche dei loro padre. L’albero fatale della scienza ci ha tentati ancora, ci tenta tuttavia; noi diamo volentieri la nostra parte di Eden tranquillo, ma vogliamo sapere. Questa smania indagatrice che ci divora, questo fosforo che trabocca, e che ci arde, noi lo paghiamo col nostro sangue. (1985, 237)

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[We belong to an exhausted race, we are the children of those who tamed nature, who dictated their laws to the world—but the children will not reap the benefits of the work of their fathers. The fatal tree of science has tempted us again, it tempts us always; we voluntarily give up our part of tranquil Eden, but we desire to know. We pay with our blood for this inquisitive agitation that devours us, this phosphorus that overflows, and that burns us.]

In History of Madness, Michel Foucault confirms the late nineteenth-century understanding of madness as linked to modern society’s detrimental effects when he notes the focus in nineteenth-century European clinical studies on the concept of degeneration, perceived by physicians of the time as the direct consequential weakening of human nature within modern society: “[m]adness became [in the nineteenth century] the paradoxical condition of the continuation of the bourgeois order, to which from the outside it nevertheless constituted the most immediate threat” (2006, 379). Mantegazza and Neera proposed that a cure for “this illness of modern times” could be provided, however, by women and by their role within society: La donna che porta nove mesi nel suo seno colui che deve essere un uomo, ecco il punto di partenza per un indirizzo più sano. E a questo non si arriverà certamente forzando le attitudini femminili, spingendo la donna su quella via di bugiarda emancipazione, di falsa educazione, di inutile e dannosa e fatalissima concorrenza all’intelletto maschile per cui si affannano tante donne incaute e pochi uomini (per fortuna) che si chiamano loro amici. [. . .] Donne; più nobile missione delle scienze e delle lettere, amore più alto di quello dell’arte e della patria, voi avete la missione di rifare la stirpe di Adamo, voi dovete sentire l’amore immenso di questa umanità che soffre. (1985, 237–38) [The woman who carries in her womb for nine months that who should become a man, this is the starting point for a healthier way. And we certainly will not arrive at such by forcing female inclinations, by pushing women on the path of false emancipation, of false education, of useless and dangerous and extremely fatal competition with the male intellect for which many rash women, and (luckily) few men that they call their friends, strive. . . . Women; a nobler mission than the sciences and letters, a higher love than that of the arts or of the homeland, you have the mission to remake the ancestry of Adam, you must feel the immense love of this humanity that suffers. Do not be jealous of man’s glory, you who possess the glory of collaborating with God!]

Here neurosis was linked also as deriving from women’s desires for emancipation and women were exhorted, for the sake of humanity, to “resign themselves to maternal and caring roles, and not take on so-called masculine roles in the public sphere as proto-feminist writers, politicians and intellectuals”

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(Mitchell 2010, 102). This dictionary entry exemplifies the contrasting ideas that circulated regarding women’s reproductive and maternal functions: from representing the source of their inferiority and proneness to nervous disorders, for thinkers such as Darwin and Lombroso, to being exalted as the highest female mission. In Il secolo nevrosico, Mantegazza presented the dangers for society when women failed to fulfill their role as mothers, falling prey instead to the decadent and degenerative lifestyle of modern times: Una volta si manteneva illesa dal nevrosismo la metà dell’umana famiglia, quella che trasmetteva e alimentava i germi della vita dall’una all’altra generazione. [. . .] Oggi anche la donna studia, anche la donna fuma, e ahimè anch’essa si inebbria coll’alcool, coi caffeici e colla morfina. Anche il ventre dell’umana famiglia è divenuto cervello e il ventre nevrosico genera all’infinito uomini sempre più nevrosici. (1995, 60–61) [Once half of the human family was left unharmed by neurosis, that half which transmits and feeds the germs of life from one generation to the next. . . . Today even women study, smoke, and alas, become intoxicated with alcohol, caffeine, and morphine. The womb of the human family has become the brain and the neurotic womb perpetually generates men that are increasingly neurotic.]

Confirming the threat of this new figure in the eyes of society, Mantegazza indicated emancipated women as one of the principal causes in contemporary society of the increase in instances of neurosis for both women and men, given that women, with their decadent behavior and lifestyle, produced neurotic children. Among all forms of neurosis, that which especially captured the interest of modern science, particularly that of the emerging psychiatric field, was the phenomenon of hysteria, “the archetypal feminine functional nervous disorder in the nineteenth century” (Oppenheim 1991, 181). Kenneth Levin confirms the remarkable attention to the subject in the fin de siècle period by noting, for example, that “the Index Medicus for 1880 lists thirty-six books and articles published in the Continent on the subject of hysteria” (1978, 50). Hysteria was not new, however. On the contrary, a long medical history of the disease exists and earliest records indicated it as exclusively a female affliction, one which originated as a disorder of the womb. Only many centuries later did doctors begin to understand hysteria as a nervous disorder. The history of hysteria as a disease of the womb is linked principally to the word’s etymology, deriving from the Greek word hystera for womb, and to the following reference in the fifth century BC Corpus Hippocraticum: “In a woman suffering from hysterika, or having a difficult labor, a sneeze is a good thing.” 6 Although Ilza Veith’s 1965 canonical text Hysteria: The Histo-

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ry of a Disease translates hysterika directly as hysteria, the exact meaning of the term hysterika is not clear. In Hysteria beyond Freud (1993), Helen King, calling for a “total revision of our understanding of the tradition [of hysteria]” (1993, 5), notes that second-century BC Greek physician Galen of Pergamum had questioned the meaning of hysterika in the above passage from the Hippocratic text, offering various possible definitions for it in his commentary on the Aphorisms, from diseases of the womb to a condition known as suffocation of the womb and problems with the afterbirth. In a lengthy analysis of ancient medical texts referring to hysterika, used to describe what was perceived to be the organic condition of the movement of the womb to other parts of the body, King affirms that “in the ancient period the word ‘hysteria’ is not used at all” (1993, 11) and that the use of the term and diagnosis of hysteria were not made by ancient authors but rather by nineteenth-century translators of Hippocratic texts and doctors, all anxious to identify the origin of the condition observed in their female patients. In fact, the nineteenthcentury edition of the Hippocratic text by Emile Littré, who “read Hippocrates in his own image and in the image of the medicine of his time” (King 1993, 7), applies the heading “Hystérie” to various passages which did not feature it as a heading in the original Greek text. King suggests two main difficulties in tracing the history of hysteria and treating it as a historical constant: “The first is that, unlike tuberculosis, epilepsy, and gonorrhea, hysteria is in no way a clearly defined disease entity for which most medical practitioners in our society would draw up the same list of symptoms; the second, that an integral part of the definition of hysteria often consists in its supposed ability to mimic symptoms of other diseases” (1993, 9). In the ancient texts, hysterikos is used but with the meaning of suffering due to the womb, because of the belief that the womb moved around in the body, reflecting an understanding of the disease as entirely organic in nature. Moving forward from the fifth-century BC Hippocratic texts, later references to hysteria regularly located its source in the womb and looped continuously back to previous texts, basing their affirmations on earlier texts rather than direct observation and study. King notes that from ancient to modern times the “texts continue to tell one another the traditional stories [. . .]: women are sick, and men write their bodies” (1993, 64). For centuries upon centuries, then, hysteria was categorized as a uterine dysfunction caused by the effects of the movement of the uterus in a woman’s body, rendering it therefore an illness that could affect only women. In the seventeenth century, ideas regarding the cause of hysteria began to change, from an organic condition to one of a nervous nature, although it continued to be a disease associated primarily with women. English physician Thomas Sydenham observed, regarding hysteria, that women

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Chapter 1 except those who lead a hardy and robust life, are rarely quite free from it. [. . .] Those men who lead a sedentary or studious life, and grow pale over their books and papers, are subject to the same complaint. [. . .] Men are less subject to it than women, not on account of their organs, but because of their more robust habit of body, as contrasted with the fine and delicate organisation of women. (qtd. in Payne 1900, 143–44)

Sydenham indicated the secluded lifestyle imposed upon middleclass women of the time as well as what was believed to be their weaker physical constitution as the causes of hysteria. The eighteenth-century English physician Robert Whytt classified hysteria as a nervous disorder “owing to an uncommon delicacy or unnatural sensibility of the nerves, and therefore observed chiefly to affect persons of such a constitution” (qtd. in Veith 1965, 160). Although hysteria was no longer considered exclusively a female disease caused by the displacement of the uterus, it nonetheless continued to be perceived as a disease that afflicted primarily women, because of the widespread belief in their delicate and physically inferior nature. Claire Kahane notes that “although Enlightenment medicine continued to move away from the literalization of hysteria as a ‘wandering womb’ to its being to a more general signifier of a nervous disorder that afflicted both men and women, hysteria remained effectively tied to cultural definitions of a denigrated femininity” (1995, 10). Significant attention to hysteria and its neurological causes characterized the nineteenth century. It was the condition that “captured the attention of the pioneer neuropsychiatrists Charcot, Janet, and Freud, and paved the way to the differentiation between neurology and psychiatry” (Szasz 1974, 10). Although French physician Pierre Briquet was the first to define hysteria, in 1859, as a neurosis of the brain, French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, head physician at the Salpêtrière hospital in Paris from 1870 to 1890 with numerous hysterical patients under his care, is credited as the physician most responsible for establishing hysteria as a medically legitimate disease whose origin is to be found in the brain rather than the womb or the nerves. 7 Thomas S. Szasz notes that “before Charcot entered the stage of medical history, a person was considered to be ill only if there was something wrong with his body” (1974, 41). Embracing and expanding Briquet’s theory of hysteria as caused by a variety of unpleasant environmental events acted upon the affective part of the brain in susceptible and predisposed individuals, Charcot defined the manifestations of hysteria as physical signs of a disease that derived from psychic trauma. For example, upon examining the case of a patient who had suffered for a year from paralysis of the hand after having slapped her seven-year-old son, Charcot concluded: “La sede delle paralisi di questo genere è nella corteccia. Ma c’è soltanto una malattia che produce questi accidenti: l’isteria. Questa donna è un’isterica per il genere di

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distribuzione dell’anestesia e il genere di perdite di movimenti che ha provato. Dunque, era una lesione corticale, che non è una lesione organica” [The location of paralyses of this kind is in the cortex. But there is only one disease that produces these episodes: hysteria. This woman is a hysteric for the manner of anesthetic distribution and the type of movement loss that has occurred. Therefore, it was a cortical lesion, which is not an organic lesion] (1989, 135). Charcot was the first to view hysteria as the expression in physical form of feelings or anxieties that the hysteric was unable to convey in other ways. During his tenure at the Salpêtrière hospital Charcot installed a photographic service which he used to observe and document his patients’ hysterical symptoms. The three volumes of Iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière (1876–1880), recording the hysterical poses and symptoms of his patients, is the fruit of this photographic service. 8 Observing predictable patterns in the behavior of his patients, such as the sequence in a consistent order of the physical actions which made up the hysterical fit, Charcot was the first to note manifestations in the disease that could be analyzed and diagnosed. Charcot described how the discovery of such patterns of behavior took place over a period of years: “Ci vedevo soltanto confusione e l’impotenza cui ero ridotto mi causava una certa irritazione; quando, un giorno, per una sorta d’intuizione mi sono detto: ‘ma è sempre la stessa cosa’, allora ho concluso che lì c’era una malattia particolare, l’isteria maggiore” [I only saw confusion, and the helplessness to which I was reduced irritated me; when, one day, by a kind of intuition I told myself: ‘it is always the same thing,’ then I concluded that here there was a particular disease, grand hysteria] (1989, 165). Charcot identified four phases, usually repeated in a continuous cycle, in a complete attack of “grande hystérie”: the epileptoid phase, divided into tonic and clonic, the large movements phase, characterized by greetings and the circle arch, the passionate attitudes phase, produced by hallucinations that could be happy or sad, and finally the delirious phase. Hysterical attacks were often demonstrated by Charcot’s patients during his famous Tuesday lectures conducted at the Salpêtrière before an audience of interns, doctors, and invited members of society. Charcot often used hypnosis, drugs, and physical manipulation and stimulation, such as exposure to magnesium flash and use of electrodes, to provoke hysterical attacks in his patients. Although credited, due to his attentive clinical observations and photographing of each phase of the disease, with providing hysteria with a set of recognizable visual traits and with distancing the disease from its origin in the womb, the theatrical nature of the demonstrations and treatments involved invited suspicion and criticism of Charcot’s methods and conclusions. Tom Gunning notes that “Charcot’s critics portrayed him as the histrionic impresario of his mimicking hysterics, inducing symptoms through suggestion and training his subjects (knowingly or unwittingly) to perform

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for himself and his invited audiences” (1997, 14). Furthermore, given that the vast majority of his patients were female, it is possible to conclude, as Elaine Showalter notes, that “for Charcot, too, hysteria remained symbolically, if not medically, a female malady” (1985, 148). While Charcot focused on analyzing and interpreting the actions of hysterical women, a young Austrian neurologist by the name of Sigmund Freud, who had studied under Charcot at the Salpêtrière from October 1885 to February 1886, began his career by listening to their stories. Freud’s 1895 volume Studies on Hysteria, a collection of five case studies of female hysteria coauthored with Josef Breuer, represented a fundamental and groundbreaking text in the field of psychoanalysis. Breuer and Freud’s theories on hysteria reflect Charcot’s interpretation of hysteria as an illness where it is possible to observe the influence of the psyche on the somatic. Freud and Breuer regarded, in fact, the physical symptoms exhibited by the hysteric as caused by the repression of mental anguish or anxiety resulting from a previous traumatic experience. For example, Freud explained the case of Fräulein Elizabeth von R.’s hysteria in the following way: “She repressed her erotic idea from consciousness and transformed the amount of its affect into physical sensations of pain” (Breuer and Freud 1955, 166). For Breuer and Freud, a range of experiences could produce trauma in the hysteric: “every experience which produces the painful affect of fear, anxiety, shame, or of psychic pain may act as a trauma” (Breuer and Freud 1937, 3). For nineteenthcentury women, trauma could result from failing to fulfill their duties as wives and mothers or failing to adapt to the ideal behavior of the weak, delicate, and dependent woman. As Hannah Decker suggests, “the restricted female role considered the norm by society actually demanded a heavy price and a compromise that many women could not easily make” (1991, 207). Showalter credits, in fact, Breuer and Freud with recognizing the “repetitious domestic routines, including needlework, knitting, playing scales, and sickbed nursing, to which bright women were frequently confined, as the causes of hysterical sickness” (1985, 158). In Freud’s 1905 Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria, in which he presents the case history of “Dora,” 9 the physician’s sympathetic understanding of women’s condition exhibited in Studies on Hysteria was replaced however with, Decker suggests, “an overweening masculine bias” and “grossly unsympathetic treatment” (1998, 106). With Dora, Freud viewed repression of sexual desire and subsequent sexual fantasies as the cause of her hysteria, noting: “a symptom signifies the representation—the realization—of a phantasy with a sexual content, that is to say, it signifies a sexual situation” (1997, 39). Failing to locate the source of Dora’s hysteria in the social and familial circumstances of her life, principally her lack of personal freedom, Freud viewed instead repressed sexual desires and fantasies as the cause, suggesting the traditional cure of marriage and sexual intercourse for

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her condition (Freud 1997, 71). Showalter notes that “Freud was eager to penetrate the sexual mysteries of Dora’s hysterical symptoms and to dictate their meanings to her” (1985, 159). Dora’s story is another example of men writing stories of female illness, of men advancing their interpretation of femininity. Modern feminists, in fact, have been particularly drawn to Dora’s case, suggesting it as a “paradigmatic text of patriarchal assumptions about female desire” (Kahane 1985, 31) and proposing Dora as a proto-feminist for questioning the constraining sexual identities for women of the time (Gallop 1982, 132–50). WOMEN’S SOCIAL AND LEGAL STATUS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY ITALY The period of Italian history in examination in this study, which spans roughly from 1860 to 1920, framed on one end by national unification and on the other by World War I and the rise of fascism, is particularly important for the social transformations that took place in Italy, such as the industrialization of the north, the subsequent growing number of women employed in factories, and the birth of the Italian women’s emancipist movement. A glance at women’s juridical and social status within pre-unification Italy and developments that took place after Italian unification provides an understanding of women’s role in society in the fin de siècle period. Susan Amatangelo notes that nineteenth-century “[y]oung women in Italy had few options as they approached adulthood; they could marry, take religious vows, or, possibly, remain in the family of origin in a caretaking capacity” (2004, 21). It is important to note that at the turn of the nineteenth century, no European country offered its female citizens political and juridical equality: women’s legal rights were understood within the framework of the family, the foundation of the social order. 10 In Italy, women were not guaranteed access to education until the 1859 Casati Law, which made elementary school obligatory for both boys and girls, and later the 1875 Borghi legislation granted women access to high school and university. Prior to these laws, the only access to an education for young girls came either in the form of private tutoring within the home, generally for the middle and upper classes, or the educandato [girls’ school] within convent walls, generally for the lower classes. In any case, both options offered a very basic form of study, focused principally on providing social graces or domestic skills to prepare young women for their future lives as wives and mothers. It was, in fact, particularly upon entering marriage that women sacrificed their independence. In “Le contraddizioni del diritto” Nicole Arnaud-Duc notes that a husband’s supremacy over his wife was based on notions of her physical inferiority: “venuta dal diritto romano, la fragilitas non costituisce tanto una

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forma d’infermità naturale quanto il motivo per cui un minore deve essere protetto” [originating from Roman law, fragilitas does not constitute so much a form of natural infirmity as the reason for which a minor needs to be protected] (1991, 70). If a husband was legally obliged to protect his wife, a wife was legally required to obey her husband. Accordingly, during most of the nineteenth century, a married woman in Italy required her husband’s consent to exercise a profession, enroll in university, open a bank account, request a passport, or even admit herself into hospital. Furthermore, women’s ability to financially support themselves outside the family structure was limited, given that employers were not legally required to pay women workers the same salaries as men. While the juridical subordination of wives to their husbands was reinforced by positivist and evolutionist theories on women’s physical and mental inferiority, the Catholic Church’s privileging for women of the roles of wife and mother also contributed heavily to promoting such roles. Michela De Giorgio notes: “L’avanzata ottocentesca del sentimentalismo religioso è in stretto rapporto con il sentimentalismo famigliare: il modello femminile cattolico è esclusivamente quello della sposa e della madre” [The advancement during the nineteenth century of religious sentimentalism is directly related to familial sentimentalism: the Catholic female model is exclusively that of the spouse and mother] (1991, 161). Adherence to such roles required submission and spirit of abnegation from women, from religious, social, and legal perspectives. The atmosphere of revolution and possibility for change represented by the Risorgimento movement encouraged many women, however, to get involved in social and political spheres. The fight for Italian national independence brought about a boosted awareness, principally among the upper classes, of women’s subordinated role in society, as Franca Pieroni Bortolotti notes: “il ‘48 segna ovunque in Europa la ripresa dell’idea di indipendenza, anche fra le donne, porta avanti energie femminili, operanti più tardi in diverse direzioni” [the year 1848 signals everywhere in Europe the recovery of the idea of independence, also among women, it brings forward feminine energies, operating later in various directions] (1963, 28). Cristina di Belgioioso, Laura Mantegazza, and Jessie White were active promoters of Italy’s movement for independence and the pre-unification “salotti patriottici” [patriotic salons] led by prominent figures such as Clara Maffei, Maria Drago, Adelaide Cairoli, and Anita Garibaldi represented the attempt, within the domestic sphere, to overcome traditional barriers for women between society and family. 11 Elena Musiani notes, however, the tendency also in this context to continue to associate women with their maternal role, although now with patriotic connotations: Quando, nel corso del XIX secolo, in Italia i salotti andarono sempre più assumendo una connotazione politica, la donna finì spesso con l’essere identi-

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ficata con la patria: nei salotti risorgimentali al binomio donna-madre, andò ad aggiungersi quello di donna-patria che soffre per i figli lontani a combattere in guerra, ma che al tempo stesso sostiene quella medesima lotta. (2012, 14) [During the course of the XIX century, when the parlors in Italy were gaining political connotations, women often ended up being identified with the homeland: in the Risorgimental salons the pairing woman-homeland, who suffers for far away children fighting in war, but who also supports that same cause, was added to that of the woman-mother.]

While the national discourse of the Risorgimento promoted for men values of action and violence, those of a brotherhood fighting for the homeland, the Risorgimental ideals for women centered on denial and sacrifice, whether through chastity or maternal loss. Marina D’Amelia notes, in fact, the exaltation of the role of mother within Risorgimental rhetoric and how it led to elevating and granting respectability to the figure of the mother within the familial and social fabric of nineteenth-century Italy: “The Risorgimento granted enduring respectability to the role of the mother, a position long treated as subordinate to that of wife in family dynamics, and as a result it established a rhetoric of motherhood that impacted on public discourse” (2012, 115). Once again, this time from a political perspective, women’s mission within society was aligned with their biological function as mother. Not surprisingly, Italian emancipist leader Anna Maria Mozzoni condemns in La donna e i suoi rapporti sociali (1864) the implications for women deriving from such rhetoric, which confirmed the idea that women’s only role was within the family: “non dite più che la donna è fatta per la famiglia, che nella famiglia è il suo regno e il suo impero! Le son queste poetiche iperboli e vacue declamazioni, come mille altre di simil genere. Ella esiste nella famiglia, nella città, in faccia ai pesi e ai doveri” [do not say anymore that women are made for the family, that the family is her kingdom and empire! These are poetic hyperboles and empty proclamations, like a thousand other similar types. She exists in the family, in the city, in burdens and duties] (1864, 214). The Italian women’s emancipist movement initially found its principal proponent for equality between the sexes precisely in Mozzoni, who fought to obtain for women the same rights and services available to men in Italian society, arguing that sexual difference should not determine the relationship between citizen and state. 12 Education, the right to vote, and free access to professions were the issues that primarily interested the activist and her faith in the new Italian state led her to view woman’s equality as an inevitable step in the development of a democratic state. Recognizing the opportunity for change represented by the elaboration of a new Civil Code in post-unification Italy, Mozzoni’s La donna e i suoi rapporti sociali addressed the questione femminile [women’s question] with the goal of adding it to the list of

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issues under consideration for reform by the new Italian state. The 1865 Civil Code, however, contained no trace of laws regarding women’s right to vote, married women’s right to ownership, or equal salaries for working women. Regarding the right to vote, Musiani notes that other forms of legislation, such as the Lanza Law of 1865, also denied women this right, grouping women with other ineligible groups such as the illiterate and criminals: “Lo Statuto Albertino, invece, negava questo diritto alle donne appoggiandosi ancora una volta sulla loro mancanza di capacità giuridica, divieto che venne riaffermato poi con l’emanazione della legge comunale e provinciale del 1865, che fissava le norme per le elezioni in ambito locale e dove le donne erano accomunate, nel testo, agli analfabeti ed ai criminali” [The Albertine Statute, however, negated this right to women, based once again on their lack of legal capability, and the ban was reaffirmed with the 1865 municipal and provincial law, which set the regulations for elections in a local setting and where women were grouped, in the text, with the illiterate and criminals] (2012, 16). In her struggle to obtain better working conditions for women, Mozzoni, together with Paolina Schiff, founded in 1881 the Lega Promotrice degli interessi femminili, which joined the Partito Operaio Italiano in 1888. In 1903, due largely to the activism of Mozzoni and Russian-born feminist activist and socialist Anna Kuliscioff, the Italian Parliament passed the Carcano Law, the first law in Italy to regulate the employment of women and children. 13 In the 1890 volume La donna italiana descritta da scrittrici italiane in una serie di conferenze tenute all’Esposizione Beatrice di Firenze, Gemma Ferruggia suggested that the atmosphere of social and political activism associated with pre-Unification Italy spurred women to take part in the literary and journalistic professions: “Solamente dopo il completo risveglio pattriottico del 1848 la donna italiana entra davvero nel campo letterario” [Only after the complete patriotic awakening in 1848 did Italian women enter the literary field] (1890, 292). The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed, in fact, the emergence in significant numbers, for the first time in Italy’s history, of women writers, such as Neera, Matilde Serao, Grazia Deledda, Bruno Sperani, Carolina Invernizio, Marchesa Colombi, Contessa Lara, Regina di Luanto, Emma, Annie Vivanti, and Anna Franchi. Acquiring the “power of the pen” was an important step for women in creating a space where they were able to express their opinions and offer an alternative to the dominant male view of women, as Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar suggest in The Madwoman in the Attic: “Lacking the pen/penis which would enable them similarly to refute one fiction by another, women in patriarchal societies have historically been reduced to mere properties, to characters and images imprisoned in male texts because generated solely [. . .] by male expectations and designs” (1979, 12). Upon entering the male-dominated literary circles of the time, women writers often encountered hostile reception of their work

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by contemporary literary critics who, perhaps drawing upon positivist and evolutionist theories of female inferiority, relegated their production to a category of its own, that of “female literature,” in an evident attempt to discredit their work. In Idols of Perversity Bram Dijkstra compares the hostility women writers faced to a literal war carried out by men against those independent women who rejected traditional roles within the domestic sphere: When women became increasingly resistant to men’s efforts to teach them, in the name of progress and evolution, how to behave within their appointed station in civilization, men’s cultural campaign to educate their mates, frustrated by women’s “inherently perverse” unwillingness to conform, escalated into what can truthfully be called a war on women—for to say “women” would contradict a major premise of the period’s antifeminine thought. If this war was largely fought on the battlefield of words and images, where the dead and wounded fell without notice into the mass grave of lost human creativity, it was no less destructive than many real wars. (1988, 1)

In the same period the increase in the number of journals directed by women and dedicated to women’s issues represents another way in which women brought about an increased awareness of their subordinated condition within society. Annarita Buttafuoco notes accordingly: “[i]l movimento [femminista], inoltre, produsse o stimolò la nascita di giornali diretti a un pubblico femminile e, sul finire del secolo, cominciò a sperimentare forme di coordinamento, dandosi un respiro nazionale e intessendo reti di collegamento su specifiche iniziative, quelle per il suffragio [the feminist movement, furthermore, produced or stimulated the birth of newspapers directed toward a female public and, at the end of the century, it began to experiment forms of coordination, spreading out on a national level and creating a network of connections on specific initiatives, those for suffrage] (1988, “Vite esemplari,” 141). The three decades following Italy’s unification witnessed the birth of journals such as La donna, La Cornelia, Cordelia, L’Aurora, Giornale delle donne, La missione della donna, La Rassegna degli interessi femminili, Vita femminile, Italia femminile, and L’Unione. 14 Buttafuoco notes the social, more than political or literary, importance of these journals in that the mere act of buying and reading a newspaper offered women the chance to gain their own point of view and break away from the stereotype of passivity and surrender (1988, Cronache femminili, 21–22). Of the above-mentioned journals, La donna, founded in 1868 by Gualberta Alaide Beccari, was more socially engaged than others. Maria Linda Odorisio and Monica Turi note the journal’s importance as a national point of reference in the questione femminile: “La donna svolgeva funzioni di organizzazione e di coordinamento in un periodo in cui mancavano completamente associazioni femminili di portata nazionale, ponendosi come punto di

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riferimento obbligato per quante si interessavano alla questione femminile” [La donna performed organizational and coordination functions during a period that completely lacked women’s associations on a national level, establishing it as a necessary reference point for those interested in women’s issues] (1991, 20). La donna’s unique policy of accepting only articles written by women reflected the journal’s attempt to foster female agency as well as offer an alternative to the dominant male point of view. Buttafuoco notes the importance in this period of raising women’s consciousness regarding their oppressed condition within society: Nell’ultimo ventennio dell’Ottocento, tuttavia, e soprattutto nei primi dieci anni del Novecento, l’emancipazionismo italiano trovò espressione in strutture e organizzazioni propriamente politiche, finalizzate cioè alla propaganda per sensibilizzare l’opinione pubblica e le istituzioni alla concessione dei diritti di cittadinanza alle donne e, soprattutto, tese a un’opera di educazione—attraverso forme di attività le più diverse, dall’assistenza legale, all’alfabetizzazione— di coloro che erano ancora lontane dalla coscienza attiva della loro oppressione. (1988, “Vite esemplari,” 141) [In the last twenty years of the nineteenth century, however, and especially in the first ten years of the twentieth century, the Italian emancipation movement found expression in political structures and organizations aimed at propaganda for sensitizing public opinion and institutions regarding the concession of citizenship rights for women, and, above all, it aimed to educate—through various forms of activities, from legal assistance to literacy teaching—those who were still far from the active awareness of their oppression.]

Late nineteenth-century activists and writers such as Mozzoni, Kuliscioff, Schiff, and Beccari sought a break for women with the traditional roles of wife and mother, arguing for women’s equality and that women be given the opportunity to perform the same roles as men in society. Emancipist claims and proposals met opposition not only from positivist and evolutionist thinkers but also from male writers and literary critics, such as Benedetto Croce, Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, and Giovanni Boine, and even from some women writers themselves, for example Matilde Serao and Neera. 15 In their reviews of female literary production, Italian literary critics claimed, as positivist and evolutionist thinkers had also done, that maternal functions and duties limited women writers’ intellectual and creative ability. In the following passage from La letteratura della nuova Italia, renowned philosopher and literary critic Benedetto Croce asserted that women were more effective at being mothers than writers, separating notions of female creativity into two distinct spheres, biological and artistic, and revealing an understanding of women in light of their reproductive function in society:

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Sembra che le donne, valenti a svolgere in sè per nove mesi un germe di vita, a partorirlo travagliosamente, ad allevarlo con un’intelligente pazienza che ha del prodigioso, siano di solito incapaci di regolari gestazioni poetiche: i loro parti artistici sono quasi sempre prematuri: anzi, alla concezione segue istantanea la dèliverance, e il neonato è poi gettato sulla strada, privo di tutti quegli aiuti di cui avrebbe bisogno. (1948, 2:362) 16 [It seems that women, gifted at developing a seed of life within themselves for nine months, to give birth to it among the pains of labor, to raise it with an intelligent patience that verges on extraordinary, are usually incapable of regular poetic gestations: their artistic deliveries are almost always premature: rather, the birth immediately follows conception, and the newborn is then thrown out on the street, lacking every assistance that it would require.]

Distinguishing between women’s biological nature and their creative ability, it was common for literary critics to credit the success of those women writers who had managed to achieve recognition to their masculinity and ability to imitate already established male literary models. Borgese, writer and literary critic in early twentieth-century Italy, offered the following evaluation of contemporary women writers in the Italian context: “Ripensate a Neera, a Grazia Deledda, a Matilde Serao, a un’altra qualunque fra le illustri romanziere italiane: sono viragini, e valgono in quanto riescono a imitare i modelli dell’arte maschile” [Think of Neera, Grazia Deledda, Matilde Serao, of any one of the illustrious Italian women novelists: they are bottomless pits, and they are worthwhile only as far as they are able to imitate models of men’s art] (1928, 192). The tendency to use the adjective masculine when praising the works of women writers was common. In the preface to Neera’s autobiography Una giovinezza del XIX secolo, for example, Croce paid homage to the writer with the following words: “la scrittrice si dimostra pensatore virile” [the writer demonstrates that she is a masculine thinker] (1942, 947). Luigi Capuana also praised the masculine quality of Neera’s work when he wrote in a letter to the writer: “Quello che più mi piace nel vostro libro è la nota maschile che vi si sente. Brava davvero!” [What I like most in your book is the masculine note that one feels. Really great job!] (Arslan 1983, 185). In Letteratura femminile Capuana affirmed, regarding Serao, his “ammirazione per l’opera quasi virile della scrittrice napoletana” [admiration for the almost masculine work of the Neapolitan writer] (1988, 19). Fin de siècle literary critics, as well as scientists and philosophers, categorized intelligence and artistic creativity as male attributes, denying female capability for such traits. Negative reviews of women’s literature called out defects such as sentimentalism, instinctive immediacy, weak, or incorrect grammatical form and repetitive usurpation of themes from the male literary canon.

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The emergence of female writers in the second half of the nineteenth century alarmed many male writers, while others simply discredited women’s ability to pose a threat. The Gazzetta Letteraria column entitled “Perché nessuna donna fu grande poetessa,” which appeared regularly in 1897, was just one example of the willingness to accept notions of women as incapable of intelligent and creative thought. Commenting on the attention women writers received in his day, Borgese attributed their success to the literary decadence of the period: “Quando un contenuto letterario s’è impoverito e consunto, le donne, che percepiscono sempre con ritardo i movimenti storici, se ne impadroniscono estraendolo vivo e fresco dal passato; lo riscoprono, quando i loro confratelli l’hanno già seppellito, e ne compongono in un epilogo sonoro gli elementi che stanno per disperdersi” [When a literary content is impoverished and worn out, women, who always perceive historical movements late, master them, by extracting them fresh and alive from the past; they rediscover it when their brothers have already buried it, and they arrange in a bombastic epilogue the elements that are about to disperse] (1911, 169). Borgese emphasizes the notion, confirmed also by scientific writers such as Lombroso, that women are incapable by nature of original creative thought or artistic production, arguing that male writers need not, therefore, feel threatened by their popularity and success. In the article “L’utilità delle cose inutili,” Borgese expresses his opinion, recalling similar ideas expressed by Montegazza, that the period of decadence of his day is due to women’s predominance in society: “Ma la nostra società tende sempre più decisamente verso il lato delle madri, abbandona via via i consigli dell’intelletto per ubbriacarsi di sentimento” [But our society tends more and more decisively toward the side of the mothers, abandoning little by little the advice of intellect in favor of inebriating itself with sentiment] (1911, 360). Men offer society the advice of their intellect, whereas women’s effect upon society is compared to that of a mind-altering drug that inhibits one’s mental capacities. Like evolutionist and positivist thinkers of the time, Borgese associates that which is rational with men and that which is irrational with women, confirming the traditional dichotomy of intellect/man versus body/woman. Borgese also associates women with their biological role, limiting women’s role in society to that of mother and excluding the possibility for contributions of an intellectual and artistic nature. From 1914 to 1916, writer, poet, and La Voce journal collaborator Giovanni Boine directed Riviera ligure’s literary criticism column “Plausi e botte.” Geno Pampaloni notes how a reading of Boine’s reviews “riesce a far rivivere la stagione letteraria in cui [Boine] visse, anche negli aspetti più datati e obsoleti” [is able to bring to life the literary season in which Boine lived, even in its more dated and obsolete aspects] (Boine 1978, vii). Boine’s criticism of women writers’ production certainly appears dated and obsolete to the modern reader’s sensibility. In his review of Amalia Guglielminetti’s I

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volti dell’amore, for instance, Boine did not hesitate to blend private and public spheres, merging his understanding of female creativity with notions of women’s sensual nature in the question: “Perché che cosa può importare in fondo ad una donna, dell’arte e della sua soggettività?” [Because what can art and its subjectivity really matter to a woman?] (1978, 15). According to Boine, women wrote for the same reason they performed other activities, such as dressing provocatively when they went to the theater or walking in the street: with the purpose of exhibiting themselves. Furthermore, all of women’s activities, be it writing or other, had the same goal: that of appealing to men. Based on such a conviction, Boine concluded the article as follows: “Chiuso uno di questi volumi, questo od un altro, ognuno che veda chiaro dovrebbe concluder fra sè così: ‘Va bene. E vuol ora, signorina, passarmi il suo indirizzo?’ Gli arzigogoli critici, i giudizi, le classificazioni estetiche e storiche sono fuor di luogo assolutamente” [After finishing one of these volumes, this one or another, anyone that sees clear should conclude to himself as follows: ‘Okay. And now, miss, do you want to give me your address?’ Critical quibbling, judgments, aesthetic and historical classifications are totally out of place] (1978, 15). Concluding that women’s literature is not worthy of the critical attention one would normally afford a literary text, Boine is unwilling to separate notions of women’s sensuality from their capability for intellectual thought. In another “botta” dedicated to Guglielminetti, Boine offers the writer the following advice: “In Weininger Sesso e Carattere (ed. Bocca, che la Guglielminetti dovrebbe leggere per pigliar bene coscienza di sè) si osserva come sia difficile parlar di psicologiche intimità femminili, perché le femmine le celano, le mascherano, non le dicono agli uomini mai. Legga Weininger la Guglielminetti e veda preciso” [In Weininger’s Sex and Character (Bocca edition, which Guglielminetti should read to have a better understanding of herself) one can observe how difficult it is to speak about female psychological intimacy, because women hide it, they cover it up, they never talk to men about it. Read Weininger, Guglielminetti, and you will see clearly] (1978, 23). Boine appears to base his opinion of Guglielminetti’s literary production as well as his opinion of the writer herself, as exemplar of the female gender, on Weininger’s assertions regarding the negative female characteristics in the human personality. Denying the literary quality of women’s work was one way for fin de siècle critics to ward off the perceived threat posed by the influx of women writers in literary circles, while also revealing the extent to which theories of female inferiority circulated also outside scientific circles.

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SCIENCE AND MALADY IN THE LITERARY REALM: FROM NATURALISM TO GOTHIC Many writers within fin de siècle Europe took a direct interest in contemporary scientific theories and approaches and explored their possible application within the literary field. Positivist culture found perhaps its highest literary expression in France’s naturalist movement and Italy’s verist movement, whose writers posited scientific analysis as an essential element of the creative process. Emile Zola, considered by many the father of French naturalism, wrote in the second preface to his 1867 novel Thérèse Raquin that: Leggendo il romanzo con attenzione, si vedrà che ogni capitolo corrisponde allo studio di un insolito caso fisiologico. In poche parole, ho avuto un unico desiderio: dati un uomo vigoroso e una donna insoddisfatta, ho voluto cercare in loro la bestia, nient’altro che la bestia, e gettarli in un dramma violento, annotando scrupolosamente le loro azioni e sensazioni. Ho semplicemente compiuto su due corpi vivi il lavoro analitico che i chirurghi compiono sui cadaveri. (2009, ii) [Reading the novel with attention, it can be noticed that every chapter corresponds to the study of an unusual physiological case. In short, I had a sole desire: given a strong man and an unsatisfied woman, I wanted to look for the beast in them, nothing other than the beast, and throw them into a violent drama, scrupulously noting their actions and sensations. I simply performed on two live bodies the analytical work that surgeons carry out on corpses.]

Like the surgeon dissecting a body to understand the manner of its functions, Zola dissects the actions and feelings of his characters to comprehend what produces certain forms of behavior. Years later, in his 1880 essay Le roman experimental, Zola outlined the objectives of the naturalist novel, which he defined experimental for its use of what he called a scientific method of studying man, human nature, and society. Cavalli Pasini notes, in fact, a certain natural affinity between the roles of scientist and naturalist writer: Tali confronti tra scienza e letteratura dovrebbero servire più ancora che a mostrare una possibile influenza della ricerca scientifica sulla resa artistica e viceversa[. . .], a rendere conto di quella naturale complementarità [. . .] tra l’atteggiamento dello scienziato e quello del letterato, entrambi protesi a scrutare nel fondo oscuro che muove il comportamento dell’uomo, e in particolare nell’eccesso dell’azione che scaturisce dalla patologia, per ricavarne delle leggi che in forza della scrittura, [. . .] riescano a definire un codice comportamentale capace di spiegare l’uomo all’uomo e in grado di chiarire la trama labile del suo destino. (1982, 112) [Such comparisons between science and literature should serve even more to show a possible influence of scientific research on artistic output and vice

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versa. . . , to account for that natural complementarity . . . between the attitude of the scientist and that of the writer, both striving to scrutinize in the dark depths that which moves man’s behavior, and especially in the extreme action that originates from illness, to draw from them the laws that are able, through writing, . . . to define a behavioral code capable of explaining man to himself and of clarifying the fragile drama of his destiny.]

Italian verist writers set themselves similar objectives to those of their French counterparts. While Giovanni Verga is generally regarded as the movement’s leader, Luigi Capuana was one of the first writers in Italy to adhere to the lessons of French naturalism, contributing to the theoretical elaboration and artistic development of the naturalist movement in Italy with critical volumes such as Per l’arte (1885) as well as through his narrative production, particularly the 1879 novel Giacinta and its two successive revised editions. Taking the role of critic/scientist, Capuana privileged observation as a means of critical investigation for the writer, as he states in his review of Zola’s 1877 novel Assommoir: “L’arte tende a rinnovellarsi per mezzo della osservazione diretta e coscienziosa” [Art tends to renew itself by way of direct and meticulous observation] (qtd. Pagano 1999, 36). Observation of the pathological, and particularly the female pathological, was of special interest to naturalist and verist writers. For example, one of the earliest works in the French naturalist context, Germinie Lacerteux (1864) by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, presents a case study of female hysteria, dedicating significant attention to the physiological observation of its female protagonist: Germinie non aveva una di quelle coscienze che si sottraggono alla sofferenza con l’abbrutimento e con quella rozza stupidità nella quale una donna vegeta, ingenuamente colpevole. In lei una sensibilità malata, una specie di eccitazione cerebrale, una disposizione d’animo a lavorare di continuo, ad agitarsi nella amarezza, l’inquietudine, il malcontento di se stessa, un senso morale che era quasi risorto in lei dopo ognuna delle sue cadute, tutte le doti di delicatezza, d’elezione e di sventura si univano per torturarla. (1951, 132) [Germinie did not have one of those consciences that avoids suffering through degradation and through that vulgar stupidity in which a woman languishes, naively guilty. In her, a diseased sensitivity, a kind of cerebral excitement, a disposition of the soul to work continuously, to agitate itself in disappointment, apprehension, discontent, a sense of morality that tried to return after each of her downfalls, all the gifts of refinement, choice and misfortune, joined together to torture her.]

In the Italian context, as will be discussed in detail later, the analysis of female illness was a central trope of many novels of the period. For example, Capuana dedicates his novels Giacinta (1879) and Profumo (1892) to the

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study of female hysteria and to the analysis of a bizarre nervous disorder which causes the female protagonist’s fingertips to emit the smell of orange blossoms. It is also important to note the influence of what Mario Praz defines the “estetica dell’orrido e del terribile” [aesthetic of the horrid and the terrible] (1999, 33) in the works of various nineteenth-century European and American writers, such as Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffman, Charles Baudelaire, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Edgar Allan Poe, who were, however, rather far removed from the artistic inclinations and objectives of the naturalist and verist writers noted above. In La carne, la morte e il diavolo nella letteratura romantic, Praz notes: “La scoperta dell’orrore come fonte di diletto e di bellezza finì per reagire sul concetto stesso della bellezza: l’orrido, da categoria del bello, più per diventare uno degli elementi propri del bello: dal bellamente orrido si passò per gradi insensibili all’orribilmente bello” [The discovery of horror as a source of pleasure and beauty ended up affecting the very concept of beauty: the horrid, from a category of beauty, it became one of the actual elements of beauty: one passed by imperceptible degrees from beautifully horrid to horribly beautiful] (1999, 33). Stories of malady, but also of contaminated beauty, decay, and death in the works of writers such as those mentioned above testify to a literary style based upon the merging of late-romantic and gothic tendencies that combined elements of horror, pain, and romance. The influence, especially, of Baudelaire’s Fleurs du mal (1857) in not only literary but also artistic spheres cannot be underestimated, as Michel Draguet notes in “Baudelaire: un ‘faro’ solitario alla svolta del secolo”: “L’opera di Baudelaire e la sua estetica hanno condizionato la fioritura della cultura fin de siècle del XIX secolo” [Baudelaire’s work and his aesthetics conditioned the blossoming of the fin de siècle culture in the nineteenth century] (2016, 56). Baudelaire’s work came to symbolize, as Draguet notes further, “il segno di una caduta, il sintomo di una malattia che colpisce il corpo sociale” [the sign of a fall, the symptom of a disease that strikes the social body] (2016, 63). While the gothic genre had limited resonance in Italy, due most likely to Italy’s strong classical and realist traditions, certain writers within the fin de siècle Italian context, particularly those within the scapigliatura movement, were particularly receptive to literary influences of this type from beyond national borders. For writers such as Tarchetti, Giuseppe Rovani, Camillo Boito, Carlo Dossi, and others, the works of Hoffman, Poe, and Baudelaire represented essential points of reference in the formulation of a literary style that privileged topics such as: “(1) ossessione; (2) allucinazione; (3) incubo; (4) malattia; (5) morte” [(1) obsession; (2) hallucination; (3) nightmare; (4) disease; (5) death] (Finzi, 1980, 13). Lawrence Venuti suggests Tarchetti as “the first practitioner of the Gothic tale in Italy” (2009, 9). According to Neuro Bonifazi, Tarchetti’s interest in the supernatural differentiated him

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within the Italian literary context, aside from a few attempts at “narrativa fantastica” [fantasy narrative] by writers such as Antonio Ghislanzoni, Capuana, and Serao (1982, 79–80). Tarchetti’s portrayal of illness and death in Fosca and several of his short stories, particularly those found in the collection Racconti fantastici, reveals not only a fascination with the macabre but also the importance that authors such as Poe, Baudelaire, and Hoffman held for him as literary models for a genre that had little following in Italy, as Del Principe notes: The complex spate of foreign influences to which Tarchetti was receptive and which posited the representation of Reality in the dichotomy between the natural and preternatural, in addition to a view of history inseparable from a belief in metempsychosis, do seem to indicate that his narrative sits more comfortably among the Gothic novelists, such as Walter Scott and Edgar Allan Poe than among his late Romantic contemporaries in Italy. (1996, 33)

While undoubtedly writers within the scapigliatura were particularly receptive to importing gothic themes from abroad, given the movement’s declared search for breaking with tradition, the influence of writers such as Baudelaire, Poe, Hoffman, and others can also be observed on Italian writers from other movements and schools. For example, both Capuana and Serao adhered to the search for modernization in their attempts at “narrativa fantastica.” In particular, Capuana’s collection of short stories Aldilà, which featured, for example, the short story Un vampiro (1904), reveals how “Capuana explored, in the tradition of Tarchetti, spiritualism, ghosts, mesmerism, hypnotism, the occult, vampires, and monstruosity” (Del Principe 1996, 97). In Effetto Poe, Costanza Melani notes the influence of Poe on nineteenth-century Italian writers from various literary schools, ranging from the scapigliato Tarchetti or the verist Capuana to decadent writers such as D’Annunzio and Pascoli. The privileging of elements of mystery, the supernatural, darkness, death, decay, and madness common to gothic literature went hand-in-hand with the exaltation in much of fin de siècle Italian literature of female malady in its various manifestations: tuberculosis, sterility, neurosis, hysteria, and madness. NOTES 1. See Book 9 of Aristotle’s History of Animals: In Ten Books (Hansebooks: Norderstedt, 2017). 2. Comte’s Cours de philosophie positive experienced an enormous distribution and represented the departure point for the development of positivist thought in the second half of nineteenth-century Europe. 3. Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), who coined the phrase “survival of the fittest” in his 1864 Principles of Biology after reading Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, presents his ideas on

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female inferiority in Principles of Sociology (1876), in which he fully embraces evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies, arguing that women are mentally inferior to men because they reserve their energy for reproductive functions. 4. See Plato’s Timaeus where the philosopher states his view that men who had lived a vile and unjust life were reborn in a second generation as women. Platone, Timeo (Milano: Mondadori, 1994): 151–53. See also Aristotle’s characterization of woman as deficient compared to man in Generation of Animals, Book 1, chapters 19–20. 5. Mantegazza did not distinguish between the terms nevrosismo and nervosismo, instead he used them interchangably, as for example when he writes in Il secolo nevrosico: “Il nervosismo o nevrosismo può essere passeggero o permanente” [Irritability or nervousness can be temporary or permanent] (1995, 7). 6. Sneezing served to “push the wandering uterus back into its place” (Veith 1965, 10). 7. Charcot did, however, suggest ovarian pain as a symptom that often accompanied hysteria and compression of the ovarian region as possible of causing or blocking a hysterical attack. See Jean-Martin Charcot, La donna dell’isteria (Milano: Spirali/Vel Edizioni, 1989): 111. 8. While Tom Gunning refers to Iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière as “[u]ndoubtedly the most famous and complex use of photography to record facial movement and expression,” he also notes: “His women patients were doubly victims, subject both to the symptoms of their disease and the control and manipulation of their doctors, who provided [. . .] the mise-en-scène of both the Tuesday lessons and the photographs of the Iconographie” (Tom Gunning, “In Your Face: Physiognomy, Photography, and the Gnostic Mission of Early Film,” Modernism/Modernity, 4.1 [Jan. 1997]: 13 and 24–25). 9. Pseudonym for Ida Bauer. 10. For a detailed study of woman’s legal status in late nineteenth- and early twentiethcentury Italy see Annamaria Galoppini, Il lungio viaggio verso la parità: I diritti civili e politici delle donne dall’unità ad oggi (Bologna: Zanichelli 1980). For a discussion of woman’s rights in the European context see Georges Buby and Michelle Perrot, Storia delle donne in Occidente. L’Ottocento, edited by Geniviève Fraisse and Michelle Perrot (Roma-Bari, Laterza 1991: 51–88). 11. See Odorisio and Turi 1991, 17–29 for a discussion of women’s involvement in the Italian Risorgimento. 12. For a detailed study of Mozzoni’s role in the Italian women’s emancipist movement see Pieroni Bortolotti 1963 and Odorisio and Turi 1991, 17–66. 13. Women would not gain the right to vote in Italy until 1946. 14. For a detailed study of women’s journals and their directors in fin de siècle Italy see Buttafuoco 1988, Cronache femminili, 21–52. 15. Arslan notes that it was the norm rather than the exception for successful late nineteenthcentury women writers to publicly express their opposition to the feminist cause. See Arslan, Dame, galline e regine 1998, 49–50. Also see Amato 1981, 105–9. 16. The original four volumes of La letteratura della nuova Italia, published in 1914, contained articles published by Croce on La Critica in the years 1903–1914. Two additional volumes were published in 1938 and 1940.

Chapter Two

Female Malady and Transgression in Italian Literature

Stories of women afflicted by physical, mental, and nervous disorders are not unusual in fin de siècle Italian literature. In such stories the female body was often the site of excessive passion, and malady in its various forms functioned as the consequence, and at times punishment, for such transgression. In this chapter I will examine novels by authors ranging from Giovanni Verga to Sibilla Aleramo narrate stories of female suffering and sense of inadequacy experienced by women for either failing to fulfill societal expectations or for accepting society’s limitations in place of following their own aspirations. In the novels examined, illness represents a lens for portraying women’s condition in society, bringing to light situations of social injustice faced by women of the time and exposing the pressure and limitations to which women were subjected. Emerging, however, from all the novels examined in this chapter is an image of women as passive victims, where illness is a symbol of succumbing to and being overcome by patriarchal expectations. In Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism, Shoshana Felman confirms such an understanding of the function of mental illness when she notes that “madness is the impasse confronting those whom cultural conditioning has deprived of the very means of protest or self-affirmation” (1997, 8). GIOVANNI VERGA’S STORIA DI UNA CAPINERA AND TIGRE REALE In Figuring Women: A Thematic Study of Giovanni Verga’s Female Characters Susan Amatangelo notes that in Verga’s novels “[o]nly women who are 37

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able to suppress or compromise their personal needs and desires in favor of domesticity manage to be happy” (2004, 15). While there are many examples within Verga’s literary production of women facing these limited options, I will examine the novels Storia di una capinera (1871) and Tigre reale (1875) for their portrayal of women whose failure to fulfill traditional roles results in illness and even death. In Storia di una capinera, Verga presents the consequences the young protagonist Maria must endure when she refuses to accept the destiny imposed upon her by her family. Familial and economic reasons, in fact, rather than a personal calling, account for why Maria takes her vows as nun. As Maria’s stepmother explains to her on one occasion: “Ella mi parlò lungamente de’ suoi doveri, dei miei, della mia vocazione, della necessità impostami dalla mia povertà di dar retta a quella vocazione” [She spoke to me at length about her duties, my duties, my vocation, the necessity that my poverty imposed on me to heed that vocation] (Verga 1996, 209). The story recounted at the start of the novel of the blackcap bird (the capinera of the novel’s title), which dies from suffering after being imprisoned in a cage, foreshadows the fate awaiting Maria. In Questioni verghiane, Francesco Nicolosi notes that in Storia di una capinera, “[a]ppaiono infatti nel romanzo i temi della famiglia e della casa, si affermano la necessità della rinuncia, l’ineluttabilità del fato e la forza invincibile della legge economica per la quale Maria, la ‘capinera’, è costretta a vestire l’abito monacale” [the themes of family and home are present in the novel, confirming the necessity of surrender, the unavoidability of fate, and the invincible force of the economic law that obligates Maria, the blackcap, to wear the monastic habit] (1969, 22). Maria fails, however, to resign herself to the restrictions of life within the convent by falling in love with Nino, a young man she meets during a brief stay outside the convent to visit her family. In Verga e il naturalismo, Giacomo DeBenedetti notes how Maria’s love for Nino constitutes an element of revolt within the novel: Maria sa che la sua monacazione è ineluttabile, perché lei è povera, senza madre, non può usurpare un posto nella seconda famiglia di suo padre. Maria è, per ora, una rassegnata, che non capisce la rivolta. Per coltivare in lei la possibilità di rivolta, il Verga si sentirà costretto ad aggiungere una situazione nuova, il secondo episodio, l’amore per Nino. Ed allora, in questa fase iniziale della sua libertà che sa transitoria, Maria non dovrebbe avere speranze—ogni rivolta è anche speranza—ma tener chiuso in sé, già pronto, come un’abitudine e quasi una seconda natura, l’adattamento all’ineluttabile “dopo.” (1976, 111) [Maria knows that her monastic vow is unavoidable, because she is poor, without a mother, she cannot assume a place in the second family of her father. Maria is, for now, resigned, she cannot comprehend revolt. To cultivate the

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possibility of revolt in her, Verga was forced to add a new situation, the second episode, her love for Nino. And so, in this initial phase of her freedom that she knows to be temporary, Maria should not have hope—every revolt is also hope—but keep locked within herself, ready, as something routine and almost second nature, her surrender to the unavoidable “after.”]

Although Maria is naive and innocent, rather than accept the fate reserved for her and the limitations it carries, she becomes increasingly infatuated with Nino until both her physical and mental well-being begin to deteriorate. Just as Maria’s body reflects her new existence as nun (through the cutting of her long hair and the special clothing she must wear), it also bears the signs of the torment of confinement and inability to love freely. The first sign of Maria’s physical illness, a fever, develops, in fact, after spending time alone with Nino. From that moment forward, Maria is acutely aware of the deprivations she must endure because the destiny reserved for her as nun prohibits and condemns love of a physical nature. Maria’s mind also suffers the fate enforced upon her. In letters to a friend she expresses her feelings of suffocation and entrapment: “Mi pare di esser pazza. . . . Vorrei strapparmi i capelli; vorrei lacerarmi il petto colle unghie; vorrei urlare come una belva, e scuotere codeste grate di ferro che imprigionano il mio corpo, torturano il mio spirito, e che irritano la mia sensibilità nervosa.” [I think I’m crazy. . . . I would like to pull my hair out; I would like to rip my chest with my nails; I would like to scream like a beast, and shake this iron grating that imprisons my body, tortures my spirit, and irritates my nervous sensibility] (Verga 1996, 231). Maria’s last letters, before her untimely death at a young age, are the testimony of her fragile state of mind, as she imagines running away from the convent with Nino, who is by this point married to her sister. In addition, the paranoia that others think her crazy further torments Maria in her final moments, as she believes herself being taken to the cell of “crazy” sister Agata. Storia di una capinera reveals how women’s roles within fin de siècle society were conditioned by not only biological factors but familial and economic ones as well. Women were unable to escape illness, much as they were unable to escape the family context into which they were born: “Ringrazia il buon Dio, Marianna mia, che ti ha serbato la mamma, che non ti ha fatto nascere povera, che non ti ha confitto nel cuore questa spina, che non ti ha fatta debole, isterica, nervosa, malaticcia” [Thank the good Lord, my Marianna, that saved your mother for you, that did not make you grow up poor, that did not stick this thorn into your heart, that did not make you weak, hysterical, nervous, ill] (Verga 1996, 220). Verga’s novel brings attention to those women who rebel against prescribed roles, in this case within the convent, for madness, illness, and death await those who do not passively submit.

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Verga’s novel Tigre reale, a story of infatuation, matrimonial transgression, illness, and death, features the love affair between Giorgio La Ferlita, an Italian diplomat, and the countess Nata, wife of a Russian diplomat who spends her winters in Italy as a cure for her tuberculosis. While Tigre reale shares little in common with Storia di una capinera’s setting and plot, similarities can be found in the fate of illness and death reserved for the female protagonists of both novels when they fail to adhere to traditional roles allotted women of the time. Unlike Maria, whose illness overcomes her as a result of her confinement, Nata is surrounded by an aura of sickness from the very start of the novel, as the following description reveals: “Era pallida, dimagrita, avea gli occhi stanchi, arsi di febbre” [She was pale, thin, with tired eyes, burning with fever] (Verga 1996, 318). Nata’s illness, with frequent references to her pallor, livid color, thinness, coughing fits, and fevers, is openly and even lightly discussed within the social circles in which she moves: at one point Giorgio is encouraged by his friend of the need for a fast courtship given that Nata is “una donna andata” [a gone woman] (Verga 1996, 317). Verga explores the theme of illness and its appeal through the description of the cadaveric aspect of Nata’s body: “si vedevano gli omeri scarni, il petto incavato, le braccia su cui i guanti s’increspavano; [. . .] si indovinava il pallore cadaverico; ma nondimeno quel viso consunto, quelle labbra smorte, quell’occhio arso dalla febbre avevano un fascino irresistibile” [one could see her thin shoulders, the sunken chest, the arms on which the gloves loosely gathered; . . . one could guess the deathly pallor; but nevertheless that consumed face, those pale lips, those eyes burning with fever held an irresistible charm] (1996, 348). However, Nata is also associated with qualities that reveal an hysterical and nervous temperament: “[c]otesta donna avea tutte le avidità, tutti i capricci, tutte le sazietà, tutte le impazienze nervose di una natura selvaggia e di una civiltà raffinata [. . .] e nella felina pupilla corruscavano delle bramosie indefinite ed ardenti” [this woman had all the greed, all the whims, all the satisfactions, all the nervous impatience of a wild nature and of refined civility . . . and undefined and ardent cravings sparkled in her feline pupil] (Verga 1996, 318). Whereas Verga explores Maria’s illness as the consequence for her transgression, her inability to accept the role imposed upon her by familial and societal circumstances, Nata’s sickness reflects her sexually transgressive nature, that of a woman who projects passion and insatiability. In both novels, illness is a vehicle for these characters’ violation of traditional behavior for women of their time. Giorgio is convinced that it is Nata’s passionate nature, rather than tuberculosis, that is killing her; and Nata suggests as much through her explanation to Giorgio of how she acquired the disease, after learning that her former lover had betrayed her: “mi ammalai lungo il viaggio, e quando giunsi a Pietroburgo dissero ch’ero etica” [I fell sick along the journey, and when I

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reached Petersburg they told me I was consumptive] (Verga 1996, 333). Nata’s transgressive lifestyle, characterized by the excessive nature of her passion, which is compared to that of a lioness, is ultimately presented as the cause of her illness. Nata is also transgressive for her contradictory, hybrid nature, which makes her at times animal-like and ferocious, like the tiger of the novel’s title, and other times cold and cruel, indifferent to love. Furthermore, while she is profoundly feminine and attracts Giorgio as well as other male characters, she also demonstrates traits of virility, in contrast to Giorgio’s character, which is often associated with effeminate qualities. Nata and Giorgio, described as two unhealthy beings, represent the reversal of traditional gender traits, for Nata is described as vehement and possessing “every virile tyranny,” while Giorgio is effeminate and sensitive, demonstrating “every feminine weakness,” exemplifying instead characteristics of that new type of masculinity described by Serao in her novel Cuore infermo as the “inquieta e raffinata gioventù moderna” [the restless and refined modern youth]. Nata’s demanding and aggressive personality is a further example of how she contradicts appropriate female behavior for fin de siècle Italian society. Nata’s rebellious and unconventional lifestyle represents deviance from traditional female roles and behavior, similar to the way in which Maria’s failure to accept her fate within the convent represents her transgression against obedience expected of women in that time. Alienation and death await both Maria and Nata for their violation of appropriate roles and behavior. Just as Giorgio and Nata differ greatly in their personalities, so do the two principal female characters in the novel: Nata and Erminia, Giorgio’s wife. Verga establishes the traditional binary representation of women in the characters of Nata and Erminia: Nata is the transgressive “other” woman in contrast to Erminia, a symbol of purity and innocence. Nicolosi notes that “[a] Nata, l’aristocratica donna fatale, si contrappone, portatrice di un sano ideale borghese, Erminia, in cui il motivo della famiglia, sempre presente nelle opere giovanili, assume un’importanza essenziale ed appare chiaramente dominante” [Nata, the aristocratic femme fatale, is juxtaposed to the bearer of the healthy middle class ideal, Erminia, in whom the theme of the family, always present in the early works of Verga, assumes an essential importance and appears clearly dominant] (1969, 42). In this regard, it is interesting to note that Nata and Erminia share one trait, the “savage” nature of their love; however Nata’s passionate love is opposed to Erminia’s maternal love, further confirming the binary representation of femininity that these characters portray. The difference between Nata and Erminia is further accentuated by Erminia’s struggle to avoid her romantic feelings for Carlo, whom she encourages to leave town for the sake of fulfilling one’s duty, referring not only to his duty as military officer but also to her duty as wife. Refusing an affair with Carlo, Erminia adheres to bourgeois morality and is

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rewarded in the end of the novel when Giorgio abandons Nata to return to her. Nicolosi notes the value and symbolism of this character not only in Tigre reale but also as a model of femininity for Verga’s future narrative production: “Erminia dunque, la donna che sa chiudere in cuore la sua pena, che sacrifica l’amore all’ideale della famiglia, è colei che demistifica il mito romantico della passione fatale e rappresenta il motivo dell’amore-rinuncia che troverà la più alta espressione nell’etica del mondo malavogliesco” [Erminia, therefore, the woman who knows how to shut off the suffering in her heart, who sacrifices love for the ideal of the family, is she who demystifies the romantic myth of fatal passion and represents the theme of love-denial that will find its highest expression in the ethics of the world of the Malavoglia] (1969, 42–43). Erminia is the perfect counterpart to Nata: the submissive, dutiful woman who accepts her wifely and motherly role and duties over her personal desires and aspirations. Erminia also represents the association in the novel of passion and illness, explored by Verga through Erminia’s illness at the news of her beloved Carlo’s departure. During her illness, Giorgio imagines Erminia with traits that had thus far been associated with Nata, so that Erminia is transformed from being white and serene to becoming waxy and cadaver-like, recalling Nata’s features, which are worn down by fevers and passion, but which display something fascinating, repugnant, and horrendous. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that Giorgio comes to desire Erminia during her period of sickness. Confessing the temptation and sin she avoided to Giorgio, Erminia redeems herself and recovers from her illness. Nata, on the other hand, is “punished” in the novel’s conclusion. In contrast to the passion of the early days of their romance, Nata and Giorgio’s last night together, referred to as “that horrible night of love,” is surrounded by an aura of illness and death: Ella irrigidita, quasi svenuta, metteva dei piccoli gridi selvaggi, e difendeva i veli del suo petto con pudore d’inferma. Ad un tratto si mise a stracciarli lei stessa, fuori di sé, poi gli si abbandonò nelle braccia con rigidità catalettica, balbettando, singhiozzando, annaspando colle mani verso il letto. Egli ve l’adagiò, colle vesti disfatte, i capelli sparsi, stecchita come un cadavere. (Verga 1996, 355) [Stiff, almost unconscious, she let out small savage cries, and defended the veils on her chest with the modesty of the ill. Suddenly, she started to tear at them herself, out of her mind, then she fell back on her arms with cataleptic stiffness, stammering, sobbing, fumbling with her hands toward the bed. He laid her down, with her clothes disheveled, her hair messy, stiff as a corpse.]

At this point in the novel, Nata’s illness is no longer a source of seduction but rather repulsion for Giorgio, as he also comes to risk the alienation that Nata

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represents. Enrico Ghidetti notes how this concluding episode from Verga’s novel represents the “contrapposizione tra la sicura efficacia del grand guignol scapigliato (la notte d’amore dell’uomo terrorizzato e posseduto dalla donna morente, ingente prestito dalla recente Fosca di Tarchetti) e l’idillio familiare” [juxtaposition between the sure efficacy of the scapigliato grand guignol (the night of love of the terrorized man possessed by the dying woman, adapted from Tarchetti’s recent Fosca) and the idyllic family life] (1983, xxiv). In fact, upon returning home the following morning, Giorgio finds that, during his absence, his son’s illness has worsened, as if in punishment for his infidelity. However, Giorgio’s son lives and it is Nata who dies, abandoned by Giorgio to die alone when he fails to return to see her as promised, staying instead with his wife and child. DeBenedetti notes regarding Tigre reale that “il Verga sembra quasi prendere atto di una legge morale immanente nella vita e nel consuntivo dei destini umani. Una severa contabilità fa scontare con la catastrophe, col ‘dramma’ le trasgressioni a quella legge” [Verga almost seems to acknowledge the inescapable moral law in life and in the final balance of human destinies. A severe form of balancing expiates with catastrophe, with “drama” the transgressions to that law] (1976, 231). With Nata’s death and her funeral procession at the end of the novel, the transgressive female character is exorcised from Giorgio’s life and from society in general. Verga’s portrayal of Nata’s story confirms again the impossibility for women to break out of the traditional imposed roles of wife and mother. LUIGI CAPUANA’S GIACINTA AND PROFUMO Capuana’s novel Giacinta (1879) is the analysis of a case of thwarted female sexuality and female neurosis, but also, as the author declares in the preface to the novel’s third edition, “l’analisi d’un carattere, lo studio d’una passione vera, benché strana, anzi patologica” [the analysis of a character, the study of a true passion, although strange, even pathological] (1972, 35). Due to the sexual violence Giacinta experienced as a young girl, she is unable as an adult to maintain healthy relationships with men: she marries a man she does not love, betraying him with the man she truly loves, Andrea. Giacinta’s doctor, Dr. Follini, declares her “un caso di patologia morale” [a case of moral pathology] (Capuana 1980, 161), coming to the following conclusion regarding her condition: “Le donne della sua natura non possono amare che una sola volta” [Women with her nature can love only once] (Capuana 1980, 170). Geno Pampaloni notes that Giacinta has been condemned to “nonamore, per cui risulta vano ogni suo tentativo di ritrovare quasi per scommessa, à rebours, la normalità affettiva e sociale” [nonlove, which renders useless each of her failed attempts to recover affective and social normality]

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(1972, 18). In refusing to find fulfillment within traditional marital confines, her desire for love and sexual satisfaction must come from outside marriage. Giacinta’s actions represent a rejection of bourgeois marriage and confinement of female sexuality within the traditional role of wife. Giacinta, however, suffers the consequences of her unconventional lifestyle. Although she reasons to herself that she is justified in taking revenge on the society that has marked her as tainted, Capuana’s portrayal of the consequences for Giacinta reveals otherwise. When, as an adult, she comes to fully understand the violence she experienced as a child, Giacinta suffers physically: she is struck by a raging fever and long illness that leaves her physically weakened. Although Giacinta feels obliged to fulfill her marital duty as wife to her new husband, she also feels that she is betraying the purity of her love with Andrea. With time, Giacinta and Andrea’s passion begins to subside and she turns to consciously seducing her lover to keep him from leaving her, transforming her body into an instrument of seduction, which she finds repulsive: “Si faceva bella unicamente per lui, gli si prodigava, gli metteva quasi in mostra il suo corpo con atti e mosse provocanti, che ripugnavano al suo carattere e al suo pudore di donna” [She made herself beautiful only for him, she lavished him with attention, almost putting her body on display with provocative gestures and movements, which were repulsive to her character and to her female modesty] (Capuana 1980, 188). In the end of the novel Capuana demonstrates how Giacinta’s deviance ultimately leads to her madness and death. With her relationship with Andrea nearing its end, Giacinta feels overcome by a desire for revenge against herself and her body, as her thoughts reveal in the following passage: “Tutto quello che era accaduto ella voleva almeno meritarselo con qualcosa di spregevole, di ributtante, dove la sua volontà fosse intervenuta colla più piena coscienza. E poiché il suo corpo, quel miserabile suo corpo diceva di no, ella voleva buttarlo in preda al primo capitato per isbarazzarlo da quei pudori e da quegli scrupoli serviti solamente a ridurla infelice” [She wanted, at least, to deserve everything that had happened by doing something despicable, revolting, in which her will intervened with full consciousness. And since her body, that miserable body of hers, said no, she wanted to offer it to the first man she encountered to rid herself of that modesty and those scruples that had served only to make her unhappy] (Capuana 1980, 190). Although she cannot bring herself to act on her intentions of giving herself to the first man she meets, her “follia” [madness] and “furore omicida” [homicidal rage] progress to the point where she contemplates killing herself and Andrea. In the end, she succeeds only in taking her own life; while Andrea, interpreting the falseness of her caresses, understands the threat of her madness and avoids her attempt to kill him. In Giacinta, Capuana depicts the female protagonist as a victim of sexual violence, but one who fails to obtain

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justice or revenge for the offense she has experienced. Giacinta’s illness represents the consequence of her transgressive lifestyle and choices In Profumo, Capuana presents another case of female illness and neurosis intertwined with repressed female sexuality by exploring the female protagonist Eugenia’s difficulty to affirm herself within the family triangle, which posits wife against mother-in-law for the love and attention of one man, Patrizio. Paola Azzolini notes that the presence of the mother-in-law as the interfering element in Eugenia and Patrizio’s marriage represents a unique element of the novel: “Che rivale di Eugenia, moglie legittima, sia la madre, come donna, e cioè fuori dalla sua funzione materna, nel ruolo della femmina possessiva e castratrice, cambia il significato strutturale della vicenda: la storia borghese di un rapporto matrimoniale infelice si arricchisce di valenze simboliche” [That the rival of Eugenia, legitimate wife, is the mother, as woman, and therefore outside her maternal function, in the role of possessive and castrating female, changes the structural significance of the event: the middle class story of an unhappy marriage takes on symbolic value] (1996, vii). Eugenia’s illness, a strange form of hysteria that manifests itself in the typical symptoms noted for the time and, quite atypically, in the emission of the smell of orange blossoms from her fingertips, first reveals itself after Eugenia’s argument with Patrizio regarding the interfering presence of his mother Geltrude. The fight for possession of Patrizio by both mother and wife reaches macabre tones when Geltrude accuses Eugenia of usurping Patrizio’s health in vampire-like fashion: “Lei se lo beve il tuo sangue! Lei se l’assorbisce la tua carne, il midollo delle tue ossa, la tua vita! . . . Io sono impotente a lottare con lei. È giovane, è bella, è amata. Ti ha stregato!” [She drinks your blood! She absorbs your flesh, the marrow of your bones, your life! . . . I am powerless to fight against her. She is young, beautiful, loved. She has enchanted you!] (Capuana 1996, 43). Just prior to one of her hysterical convulsions, Eugenia had, in fact, claimed her ownership of Patrizio with the words, “Mi appartieni . . . Sei mio! Non sei più suo!” [You belong to me . . . you are mine! You are no longer hers!] (Capuana 1996, 36). Azzolini notes the symbolic juxtaposition between the two female characters in Profumo: “È evidente il gioco oppositivo: la madre ha dato il latte e la vita; ‘colei’ si beve il sangue, come una belle dame sans merci” [The game of opposites is evident: the mother gave him milk and life; “the other” drinks his blood, like a belle dame sans merci] (1996, viii). Eugenia’s desire and need to possess Patrizio frightens not only Geltrude but also Patrizio, who feels threatened by Eugenia’s passionate sexual desire: Patrizio tentava sempre di dominare il profondo turbamento da cui veniva assalito a certe carezze di lei. Voleva almeno nasconderlo, non per sé, ma per lei. Aveva osservato più volte che la commozione di lui la sovreccitava mag-

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Eugenia’s ability to fulfill her sexuality is hindered not only by her motherin-law’s hovering and negative presence, which limits the couple’s opportunities for privacy, but also by her husband’s reluctance to accept her passion and sexuality as natural and normal. Patrizio’s fears posit female sexual desire as a frightening and threatening force which must be contained. Eugenia reveals how she fears her own physicality, having been taught from her youth that it is something to keep hidden from the eyes of society, as if something to be ashamed of: “Da ragazza le avevano fatto capire che quei disturbi femminili bisognava dissimularli, per pudore. [. . .] Interrogata dal dottore, aveva negato di averne mai avuti prima di quel giorno” [As a young girl, they had made her understand that those female disturbances needed to be hidden, for modesty. [. . .] Questioned by the doctor, she had denied ever having had them before that day] (Capuana 1996, 64). The novel’s Dr. Mola, a small-town physician unfamiliar with cases such as Eugenia’s, studies her condition with the curiosity of one observing a rare phenomenon, describing it as an indication of the great delicacy of the female nervous system (Capuana 1996, 59). The doctor is hesitant to cast verdicts on Eugenia’s condition, revealing the limitations of science in understanding certain instances of the female nature and confirming stereotypical notions regarding the mystery of femininity: “Con le malattie nervose, non si sa mai. [. . .] Noi mediconzoli, imbattendoci in un caso che c’imbarazza, specialmente se si tratta di donne, sogliamo uscirne pel rotto della cuffia, dicendo: ‘Nervi! Nervi!’” [With nervous diseases, you never know. [. . .] We smalltime doctors, when we encounter a case that embarrasses us, especially if it regards women, we usually muddle through, saying: “Nerves! Nerves!”] (Capuana 1996, 59). Azzolini notes the function of the doctor in Profumo, as well as in Giacinta, is that of indicating “un punto di vista privilegiato, quello dell’autore che si elimina come presenza, come giudicante, e delega a queste figure vicarie la funzione di guidare il lettore alla ricerca del significato del

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racconto” [a privileged point of view, that of the author who deletes his presence, as critic, and delegates to these vicarious figures the function of guiding the reader in the search for the meaning of the story] (1996, xiv). The difficult family triangle appears resolved with the death of Geltrude, an event which Eugenia believes will finally free her to love and be loved by her husband as she wishes. Death does not completely free the couple from the hovering presence of the mother-in-law, however, as Patrizio’s feelings of guilt for opposing his mother lead him to avoid Eugenia and her claims for attention. At this point, Eugenia expresses her sexual desire to Patrizio in no uncertain terms, only to meet his continued rejection, disapproval and, ultimately, fear: “Voglio essere amata come t’amo! Amata, intendi? Amata! . . .” “E non t’amo?” “Dell’amore a cotesta tua maniera, oh! non so che farmene! Amore a parole! Io non ti affermo soltanto di amarti; te lo provo. Pensa che ho ventidue anni; non sono una vecchia, e voglio stare tra le tue braccia, e voglio sentirmi accarezzata, baciata, amata come tutte le altre!” [. . .] “No; sei nervosa, sei ancora malata” egli soggiunse “e travedi stranamente. Poco fa, quando ti rimproveravo: ‘Se tu comprendessi, non lo diresti!’ erano appunto i nervi che ti spingevano a parlare. E mi facevi pena, perché mi accorgevo che non sei, come tu credi, perfettamente guarita. [. . .] Non ripeterlo! Mi fa male.” (Capuana 1996, 131, 132–33) [“I want to be loved how I love you! Loved, do you understand? Loved! . . .” “And don’t I love you?” “With the way you love, oh! I don’t know what to do with it! Love in words! I don’t only say I love you; I show you. Remember that I am twentytwo years old, I’m not old, and I want you to embrace me in your arms, and like everyone else I want to feel caressed, kissed, loved!” ... “No; you’re nervous, you’re still sick” he added “and you see things strangely. A little while ago when I reproached you: ‘if you understood, you wouldn’t say it!’ it was the nerves that were making you speak. And I felt sorry for you, because I noticed that you are not, like you believe, perfectly cured.” . . .“Don’t say it again! It hurts me.”]

Eugenia, no longer satisfied with hiding her desire for physical love, reveals a transgressive sexuality for women of the time, attempting to emancipate herself from traditional restrictions regarding expression of sexual desire. Patrizio’s response to her claims reveals, however, how society continued to negate women such freedom, categorizing such requests as the expression of a denigrated and neurotic femininity. Furthermore, Patrizio’s reaction reveals how female illness was utilized to keep women confined within traditional roles and behavioral models, in other words, women who openly express

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their sexual needs and desires must be ill. Profumo is another example of how female illness functioned as the consequence for women who deviated from acceptable modes of behavior. The novel’s conclusion witnesses the apparent resolution of the struggle between Patrizio and Eugenia when, faced with the threat that she might betray him with another man and, following the doctor’s advice to let his mother’s memory go, Patrizio confesses his mistakes to Eugenia, apologizing and promising to love her. Eugenia and Patrizio’s union seems, however, purposely ambiguous in the description of the sensuality of their encounter, with its passionate embraces, kisses, and whispering in each other’s ears, which contrasts strongly with exclamations by Patrizio, such as “my daughter” and “daughter of my soul,” and the pastoral quality of the novel’s final scene, which features the couple holding hands as they stare out the window at the garden after the storm. This concluding idyllic image does not portray the type of physical love desired by Eugenia, confirmed once again in this novel to be transgressive and unattainable for women of the time. ANTONIO FOGAZZARO’S MALOMBRA In Fogazzaro’s 1881 Malombra, the themes of female entrapment and illness are explored literally and metaphorically through the experiences of two female characters: Marina di Malombra, the young, beautiful, and rebellious protagonist who portrays the epitome of the femme fatale with her pale complexion, “fiumi di capelli” [long, flowing hair] and “grandi occhi penetranti fatti per l’impero e per la voluttà” [big penetrating eyes made to command and for voluptuousness] (Fogazzaro 1997, 47), and Cecilia, Marina’s ancestor accused by her husband of infidelity and subsequently imprisoned within her room until her madness and death. The start of the novel sees Marina move to live with her elderly uncle, Cesare d’Ormengo, in his dark and gloomy castle on the shores of a lake in Lombardy, inhabiting the room which years before had belonged to Cecilia. Set within the walls of a castle haunted by what are described as strange legends, the novel presents a typically gothic setting and plot, demonstrating characteristics of a genre that is particularly significant in this context. As Showalter notes: “Feminist critics in the 1980s defined the female gothic as the paradigmatic genre of hysterical narrative” (1977, 92). In The Newly Born Woman, Hélène Cixous and Catherine Clément discuss the theme of imprisonment in relation to the chains which were used to imprison the witch or possessed woman, noting that “[w]omen’s bodies must be bound so that the constraints will make the demons come out” (1986, 11). Cixous and Clément compare such physical imprisonment to the metaphorical bondage of the hysterical woman, often limited in her aspirations by familial and societal restrictions. Malombra

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explores two parallel stories of female confinement, one literal and one metaphorical, that both lead to hysteria, madness, and alienation or death. Reflecting Fogazzaro’s interest in spiritualism and personality disorders, a pathology which was believed at that time to be common to cases of female hysteria, the novel presents Marina’s obsession with being the reincarnation of Cecilia and the ruinous actions that follow. Through the careful construction of Marina’s character as hysterical, Fogazzaro explores not only how character predisposition gives way to psychic illness, but also how mental instability acts as a sort of medium between reality and the supernatural. Fogazzaro’s portrayal of Marina reveals certain physical traits characteristic of the hysteric, such as her feverish state, paleness of skin, and penetrating eyes, but also seductiveness and sensuality. The following description of Marina reveals the seductive quality associated with her nervous condition, exalted by an element of the unknown: “non era mai stata così bella [. . .] i suoi grandi occhi gittavano fuoco assai più spesso del solito. Nella sua persona [. . .] si vedevano alternarsi l’energia e il languore di una vita nervosa, esuberante. Insomma ella era come un nodo di ombra, di luce e di elettrico, che cosa chiudesse, nessuno lo sapeva” [she had never been so beautiful . . . her big eyes flashed fire more than usual. In her person . . . energy alternated with the listlessness of a nervous, exuberant life. In other words, she was like a knot of shadow, light, and electricity, what it enclosed, no one knew] (Fogazzaro 1997, 120). Furthermore, Marina’s behavior recalls that noted in scientific accounts of patients afflicted by hysteria: from fevers and fainting to screams, nervousness, and loss of language. As Marina’s mental state becomes increasingly fragile, the language adopted to describe her condition becomes more scientific: from generic terms, such as mistero [mystery], destino [destiny], and fascino [fascination], to terms reflecting the pathological nature of her state, such as follia [madness], matta [crazy], convulsioni terribili [terrible convulsions], and delirio [delirium]. Psychiatric terms also abound, such as depressione [depression], apiressi completa [complete absence of fever], polso di cento battute [pulse of one hundred beats], accesso nervosa [nervous attack], and monomaniaci [obsessive]. Marina’s doctor offers the following diagnosis of her condition: “Vedono, dopo il travaglio nervoso di stanotte quella donna lì doveva essere a terra, oggi, sfasciata. Ma no; non abbiamo che il pallore veramente straordinario e la cerchiatura livida degli occhi. [. . .] Qui, mi son detto subito, l’accesso nervoso sussiste ancora, questa calma non è fisiologica” [See, after the nervous anguish of last night that woman should be exhausted today, devastated. But no; we only have the truly extraordinary pallor and dark circles around her eyes. . . . Here, I told myself immediately, the nervous attack is ongoing, this calm is not normal] (Fogazzaro 1997, 270). Marina’s hysteria is confirmed to the reader by the doctor’s use of the word accesso [attack], a term commonly used by doctors and writers alike to denote hysterical outbursts. Revealing his belief that

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Marina is predisposed to a nervous condition, Marina’s doctor judges her delicacy of nerves as the reason for which she has been susceptible to the influence of Cecilia’s spirit: “quand’anche la causa del male fosse distrutta, non ne discenderebbe mica che adesso si potesse impunemente irritare questa donna, i cui nervi, come dice Lei, vibrano ancora tutti; una donna, noti, molto mal disposta inizialmente se ha potuto accogliere certi fantasmi” [even if the cause of the illness were destroyed, it would not mean at all that now one could irritate this woman without consequences, for her nerves, as you said, are still fragile; a woman, please note, in a very bad state to begin with if she was able to witness these ghosts] (Fogazzaro 1997, 270). The cause for Marina’s illness is linked to her discovery of a letter left by Cecilia in a secret compartment of the desk in her room. Cecilia’s literal entrapment becomes Marina’s metaphoric binding due to the act of reincarnation, as the words from Cecilia’s letter predict: “Ebbene, qualunque sia il tuo nome, tu che hai ritrovato e leggi queste parole, conosci in te l’anima mia infelice. Avanti di nascere hai sofferto TANTO, TANTO” [So, whatever your name is, you who have found and read these words, bring my unhappiness into your soul. Before being born you suffered so, so much”] (Fogazzaro 1997, 62). Cecilia explains the reasons for her suffering in the letter: “Il conte Emanuele e sua madre mi assassinano lentamente—sono condannata! Ogni pietra di questa casa mi odia. Nessuno ha pietà di me” [Count Emanuele and his mother are slowly killing me—I am condemned! Every stone in this house hates me. No one pities me] (Fogazzaro 1997, 63). With these words, we find further evidence of the similarity between the gothic heroine and the hysteric, “whose anxieties and desires are projected onto her environment” (Showalter 1977, 92). Cecilia, persecuted by her husband, transfers her anxiety onto the objects that surround her so that they become portals of persecution. Marina, on the other hand, is bound by her uncle’s expectations for her future and his attempts to arrange her marriage to a family relative. After the discovery of the letter and other objects belonging to Cecilia, Marina faints and is stricken with a violent fever: “Conseguenza di quella notte fu per Marina una violenta febbre cerebrale di cui nessuno potè indovinare la causa” [Resulting from that night Marina suffered a violent brain fever for which no one could guess the cause] (Fogazzaro 1997, 67). Upon awakening, the process of reincarnation begins when Marina expresses feelings which can be attributed to Cecilia, for example her sudden and overwhelming feelings of aversion toward her uncle: “Quando vedeva il conte, e anche solo all’udirne i passi pel corridoio vicino, l’ammalata diventava furibonda, urlava, smaniava senza articolar parola” [When she saw the count, and even only at hearing his steps in the near hall, the ill woman became furious, screaming, tossing, and turning without being able to speak] (Fogazzaro 1997, 67). The novel follows the progression of Marina’s condition as she becomes increasingly

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obsessed with fulfilling Cecilia’s vendetta, first by causing the death of her uncle, descendent of Cecilia’s persecutor, and later that of Corrado Silla, whom she believes the reincarnation of Cecilia’s lover and whom she punishes for his failure to fully comply with her reincarnation delusion. After completing Cecilia’s fantasy of revenge, Marina abandons the castle and disappears by boat onto the lake. A key for understanding Marina’s actions as the manifestation of her hysteria can be found in Freud’s observation of his hysterical patients who were found not to “express their phantasies as symptoms, but consciously realize them in action and thus imagine and actually bring about assaults, attacks, or sexual aggressions” (1997, 116). Through a complex story of spiritualism and mental illness, Malombra confirms nonetheless contemporary notions of women’s susceptibility to illnesses of a neurotic and hysterical nature. Marina’s weakness is to be found in not resisting the temptation of the supernatural, as Vincenzo Moretti notes in Scapigliatura e dintorni: “C’è l’intenzione di mettere in rilievo l’originalità condannabile, l’artificiosità creata da una mente malata, la guasta e funerea fenomenologia di chi non ha saputo resistere alla tentazione del sovrannaturale” [There is the intention to emphasize the deplorable originality, the artificiality created by a sick mind, the spoiled and gloomy phenomenology of who was not able to resist the supernatural temptation] (2005, 51–52). Marina’s succumbing to madness, in believing herself to be the reincarnation of Cecilia and acting upon such a conviction, reflects the “flight into illness” observed by Freud in his hysterical patients: “Falling ill involves a saving of psychical effort, it emerges as being economically the most convenient solution when there is a mental conflict (we speak of a ‘flight into illness’), even though in most cases the ineffectiveness of such an escape becomes manifest at a later stage” (1997, 36). Marina’s madness and destructive actions underline her limited options as woman of her time, which leave only illness as a form of resistance. Marcia Landy describes, in fact, female descent into madness as a “major trope for feminine abjection,” where the abject “comes to signify for both feminine and masculine characters the impossibility of the social positions prescribed for them, but it would seem that femininity occupies the central position in the creation or dissolution of social boundaries” (1998, 269). GIOVANNI FALDELLA’S MADONNA DI FUOCO E MADONNA DI NEVE Faldella’s Madonna di fuoco e madonna di neve (1888) presents the themes of hysteria, contagion, alienation, and death in its story of a battle, “un vero duello, una lotta di nervi, una gara, un pugilato, una guerra di svenimenti” [a true duel, a battle of nerves, a competition, a boxing event, a war of faintings]

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(Faldella 1969, 128), between two women afflicted by two types of hysteria, which are referred to in the novel as white hysteria and red hysteria (Faldella 1969, 137). Gianfranco Contini notes that “tutta la tragedia nasce da un conflitto eminentemente figurativo dell’isteria avventata e bonaria (fuoco) e della gelida e micidiale (neve)” [The whole tragedy derives from a mainly figurative conflict between the rash and good-natured hysteria (fire) and the icy and lethal one (snow)] (1969, xxxiii). In a small town in Piedmont, where nerves don’t exist, according to the town doctor, Speranza and Fede, known by the townspeople as lioness and tiger as well as Madonna di fuoco [Madonna of fire] and Madonna di neve [Madonna of snow], struggle for control of one man, Ludovico, Fede’s brother and Speranza’s fiancé, amid the gossip and participation of the whole village. Although both women demonstrate hysterical symptoms, they possess radically different characteristics. Speranza, as the label lioness suggests, exemplifies behavior and attitudes unusual for women of the time, such as her insatiable sexuality, desire for independence and political activism. At age fifteen, with her mother and father dead, she offered the town “lo strano esempio di una giovinetta quindicenne che viveva da sola per suo conto” [the stange example of a fifteen-year-old girl who lived alone] (Faldella 1969, 12). Later she takes the upper hand in determining whom to marry when she decides to emigrate to Algeri with the man she loves, refusing to passively wait for his return. When she returns from Africa, as a widow and mother of a small child (who later dies of diphtheria), she dedicates herself to social activism by founding the women’s chapter of the Fratellanza artigiana di mutuo soccorso [Artisan Brotherhood of Mutual Aid], becoming also its president. She is an emancipated woman, unafraid of asserting her aspirations and desires and because of this instilling fear and dislike among her fellow townspeople, especially men: “Essa era bella, attraente; ma faceva presentire troppo il pericolo” [She was beautiful, attractive; but she represented too much danger] (Faldella 1969, 13) and “Speranza spaventa un povero diavolo. . . . È bella come un fior di donna; ma ha una testa forte ed un fare da uomo. . . . Si direbbe un uomo dell’altro sesso” [Speranza frightens a poor devil. . . . She is as beautiful as a woman could be; but she has a strong mind and acts like a man . . . she could be described as a man of the other sex] (Faldella 1969, 15). Speranza’s hysteria results from the conflict between her actions, transgressive for the time, and societal expectations of how she should act. For example, she experiences a night of convulsions after being reprimanded by the local priest for helping an impoverished elderly couple who live together, although they are not married and have been labeled by the priest as “quegli sciagurati [che] non sono in grazia di Dio” [those evil ones who are not in the grace of God] (Faldella 1969, 36). When Speranza insists, revealing independence of spirit, that they live together only to help each other in their poverty

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and misery, even going so far as to suggest the need for a little mercy and kindness, the priest responds with a vehement condemnation: “Tacete, tacete, bocca d’inferno! Ve l’ho sempre detto che siete una testa esaltata. . . . Finirete nella perdizione eterna!” [Silence, silence, infernal mouth! I always told you that you were fanatical. . . . You will end up in eternal condemnation!] (Faldella 1969, 38). The castigation she experiences for her outspoken behavior and unconventional ideas takes the form not only of the priest’s reproach, but also that of her hysterical convulsions that follow. Fede, on the other hand, known in town as the Madonna di neve, is characterized by her excessive coldness, whiteness, frigidity, and cadaveric rigidity (Faldella 1969, 53). Described by her brother Ludovico as bedridden, always ill, and extraordinarily nervous, Fede’s health has alternated between life and death since the passing of her husband five years before, an event which left her with seven children and economically dependent on her brother. Her hysteria is linked to her repulsion of Speranza, whom she declares “a public woman” (Faldella 1969, 55), and her desperate desire to prevent Speranza from marrying Ludovico. Fede’s hysterical attacks occur, in fact, following discussions with her brother regarding his feelings for Speranza. Toward the end of the novel, exhausted from satisfying the demands of his ill sister, Ludovico begins to feel as if he has contracted her same illness: Questi si sentiva vinto e smarrito. I suoi muscoli virili ed il suo equilibrio sano avevano dovuto cedere al nervosismo di una sorella malata cronica. [. . .] Pareva che la malattia della sorella si fosse trasfusa tutta quanta in lui. Ed egli provava la rassegnazione e quasi il godimento morboso di trovarsi infermo sfinito, totalmente in balìa alle cure altrui, senza responsabilità propria come un rimbambito.” (Faldella 1969, 150) [He felt overcome and lost. His masculine muscles and healthy being were forced to surrender to the irritability of his chronically ill sister. . . . It seemed as if his sister’s disease had been transferred to him. And he felt the resignation and almost morbid enjoyment of finding himself ill and exhausted, totally dependent upon the care of others, without responsibility for himself, like an idiot.]

Pseudo-scientific discourse pervades the novel, as evidenced by Ludovico’s sensation of contamination and also by the explanations offered by authoritative characters in the novel, such as the village doctor and veterinarian. Debating who will be victorious in the battle of the nerves waged by the two female characters, the doctors suggest, utilizing scientific terminology, a possible solution based on recent scientific discoveries regarding the study of tuberculosis and its cure: 1 “Applichiamo anche noi il simila similibus curantur, l’unum contra unum et omnia duplica, il bacillo vince e scaccia bacillo. . . . Orsù! Innalziamo la statua simbolica della Madonna di neve che

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monta a mangiare la Madonna di fuoco. . . . Sarà una grande pagina che scriviamo nella storia dell’isterismo campagnuolo contemporaneo” [Let’s also apply the simila similibus curantur, the unum contra unum et omnia duplica, the bacillus wins and eliminates the bacillus. . . . Come now! Let’s erect the symbolic statue of the Madonna of snow that rises to eat the Madonna of fire. . . . It will be an important page for us to write in the history of contemporary rural hysteria] (Faldella 1969, 154). Faldella adopts scientific reasoning to explain and justify the townspeople’s grotesque realization of a snow statue outside Speranza’s window, erected to cries such as: “Vieni fuori, leonessa! se ti senti il coraggio! Vieni fuori a vedere la Madonna di neve, che monta a mangiarti viva. . . . Brrr! Brrr! Fuori i lumi, Madonna smorzata! Fuori Fuori! Leonessa senza coraggio!” [Come outside, lioness! If you feel brave! Come outside to see the Madonna of snow, who rises to eat you alive. . . . Brrr! Brrr! Put out the lights, weak Madonna! Outside Outside! Lioness without courage!] (Faldella 1969, 155). In a self-sacrificial and dramatic final gesture, offering her own life to free the village of her tainted presence, Speranza stabs herself in the chest as she throws herself on the snow statue. With Speranza’s suicide, Faldella confirms the traditional fate for the transgressive and passionate heroine: that of alienation or death. Just as scientific discoveries of the period proved that the body can be cleansed of bacteria and cured of disease, the village can be cleansed of its impurities and contamination: the female member exhibiting impure desires and unhealthy nerves. The novel’s doctor expresses the hope for a cure to hysteria from science: “Ora bisognerebbe che Pasteur scoprisse il bacillo nervoso e coltivasse il virus isterico da inoculare” [Now it would be necessary for Pasteur to discover the nervous bacillus and cultivate the hysteric virus as vaccine] (Faldella 1969, 170). Recalling ancient theories on the origin of hysteria in the uterus, the novel indicates the female body and specifically female sexuality as causes of hysteria, as testified by the reaction of the village’s other hysteric to Speranza’s death: “La signora Fede Gallaro vedova Rogoletti si era appostata per assistere dietro le gelosie al passaggio di quel silenzioso e sospettoso feretro; si sentiva alleggerita, e quasi radicalmente risanata, come se per una larga breccia le avessero felicemente esportato l’enorme utero ed estirpata l’irritante ovaia” [Mrs. Fede Gallaro, widow of Rogoletti, was positioned behind the shutters to witness the journey of that silent and suspicious coffin; she felt relieved, and almost completely healed, as if they had successfully extracted her enormous uterus through a large opening and eradicated her irritating ovary] (Faldella 1969, 167). The threat to the town’s status quo has been exorcised with the death of Speranza.

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NEERA’S IL CASTIGO, TERESA, AND L’INDOMANI Neera’s novels and short stories often feature women struggling to fulfill the traditional roles of wife, mother, and daughter in fin de siècle Italian society. 2 Her novels Il Castigo (1881), Teresa (1886), and L’Indomani (1889) portray hysteria as the female body’s rebellion against the selfless woman’s repression of her sexual desire. In Il Castigo, Neera suggests the cause for Laura’s hysteria is fin de siècle social customs and pressures, which present marriage as the only form of fulfillment for women, describing the hysterical attacks which afflict the unmarried Laura as “isterismi di zitella” [hysterics of a spinster] (Neera 1891, 55). In her Confessioni letterarie (1891), Neera refers to Laura as a victim of society’s “grande ingiustizia”: “la società, che priva le donne dei loro diritti naturali ove non abbiano trovato un marito, si fa poi beffe di loro se rimangono zitelle, e le chiama maligne, invidiose, sensuali” [great injustice: society, which deprives women of their natural rights when they have not found a husband, then it derides them if they remain spinsters, and calls them spiteful, jealous, sensual] (Neera 1942, 872). Laura’s hysteria takes the form of hysterical fantasies which are, according to Freud’s interpretation of those observed in his female patients, the “representation—the realization— of a phantasy with a sexual content” (Freud 1997, 39). Laura’s repressed fantasies trigger her hysterical attacks: “le fantasie che cominciavano, divinizzate, nel cervello finivano in una tensione di nervi; le voglie del cuore, insoddisfatte, si slanciavano a far rappresaglia sugli altri visceri; l’anima tormentava il corpo” [the fantasies that started in her brain, glorified, ended up in a tension of nerves; her heart’s desires, unsatisfied, retaliated against her insides; the soul tormented the body] (Neera 1891, 10). In the following passage, Neera reveals that it is Laura’s fantasy of love that tortures her body: “Fa più male ad una donna il sognare un amante che averne dieci. Laura soffriva la punizione di tutti i peccati che avrebbe voluto commettere, di tutte le gioie altrui che aveva desiderate” [It is worse for a woman to dream of a lover than to have ten of them. Laura suffered the punishment for all the sins that she would have wanted to commit, for all the pleasures of others that she had desired] (Neera 1891, 11). Laura’s hysterical attacks represent her body’s rebellion against sexual dissatisfaction and repression, revealing how female illness functioned for this author as a vehicle for expressing the oppresive female condition. Neera’s novel Teresa is the study of the daughter’s oppression in late nineteenth-century patriarchal Italy and the social analysis of the “problem” of the unmarried woman, an issue also addressed by the writer in her autobiography Una giovinezza del secolo XIX (1919). Teresa is the story of one of a multitude of young unmarried women buried within the homes of provincial Italy, often because of the ruthless egoism of parents and relatives.

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The novel exposes, criticizes, and ultimately denounces the familial customs that place the daughter’s right to fulfillment second to that of the son and the social structures that place women’s only possibility for fulfillment in marriage. Antonia Arslan asserts the precocity of Neera’s feminism, referring to Teresa as “un vero, precoce, ‘romanzo di formazione’ al femminile di area italiana ottocentesca” [a true, early, female Bildungsroman within nineteenth century Italy] (1998, 138). Teresa Caccia discovers that economic factors deny her the right to marry the man she loves when her father refuses to grant her a dowry. When she rejects a marriage of convenience, Teresa finds herself unable to fulfill her role in society as wife and mother. Teresa does not openly rebel—by standing up to her father or by eloping with Orlandi—when she is forced to remain at home to care for her younger sisters and aging father, but her body rebels against the anguish and anxiety of such a situation and against the passing of her youth and youthful beauty. In Teresa the female body that suffers the injustice of sexual dissatisfaction and repression is again displayed. Teresa’s body undergoes not only the convulsive episodes associated with her hysteria, but also the long and slow decline of her youth and physical beauty. Teresa’s first hysterical episode occurs, in fact, after someone refers to her as a zitellona [spinster]: Pianse le lagrime disperate della giovinezza che muore. Pianse su se stessa, per il suo volto emaciato, per i suoi begli occhi che si spegnevano nell’atonia; per il suo povero corpo che, dopo aver vissuto come una pianta, stava per fossilizzarsi come un sasso. . . . Si torceva sul letto, mordendo le coperte con una voglia pazza di fare del male a qualcuno, col desiderio mostruoso di veder scorrere del sangue insieme alle sue lagrime. La trovarono sfinita, livida in volto, coi denti serrati. (Neera 1976, 173) [She cried desperate tears for her dying youth. She cried for herself, for her emaciated face, for her beautiful eyes that were losing their shine; for her poor body that, after having lived like a plant, was about to fossilize like a stone. . . . She twisted on the bed, biting the covers with a crazy desire to hurt someone, with the horrific desire to see blood flow together with her tears. They found her exhausted, her face livid, with clamped teeth.]

Hannah Decker refers to hysterical symptoms as the “physical manifestations of the anger and assertiveness a Victorian woman was encouraged not to demonstrate openly” (1991, 71). Teresa’s hysteria reflects Freudian patterns in the conflict between mind and body, a mental conflict that expresses itself physically, and her hysterical episodes continue throughout the novel, coinciding with significant occasions, such as the wedding day of her two younger sisters, the moment that confirms her fate as zitella.

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Teresa is uncomfortable with her femininity and the urges she feels to love. Her sense of uncertainty and shame for her womanliness is evident in the following encounter between brother and sister: Si sentiva a un tratto fatta donna—con un presentimento improvviso di dolori lontani, con una responsabilità nuova, con un pudore bizzarro, misto di una straordinaria dolcezza. Sembrava che in quel momento, solamente in quel momento, ella riconoscesse il proprio sesso, sentendosi scorrere nelle vene un’onda di languore non mai avvertita prima, e, nel cervello, sorgere una curiosità viva, pungente, la quale cessò di colpo davanti al rossore che le invadeva le guance. (Neera 1976, 17–18) [All of a sudden she felt like a woman—with the unexpected presentiment of far off pains, with a new responsibility, with a bizarre modesty, mixed with an extraordinary sweetness. It seemed in that moment, only in that moment, that she recognized her own gender, feeling a wave of languor run through her veins like she never had before, and, in her brain, a deep curiosity arose, stinging, which suddenly stopped at the blush that spread over her cheeks.]

Teresa carries the guilt not only for her resistance to her father’s wishes, in continuing to love Orlandi in secret, but also for her passion: “Aveva la persuasione di amare troppo, più assai che non sia permesso dalla religione e dal pudore femminile” [She was convinced she loved too much, much more than was allowed by religion and by female modesty] (Neera 1976, 154). Neera suggests that Teresa’s hysteria results in part from her feeling that she loves more than is allowed for a woman, revealing societal and familial pressures on women to repress their desire and sexuality. The clearest indication, however, of the nature of Teresa’s illness, described as disturbance of the nerves, comes from her doctor, who prescribes a change in lifestyle, such as getting out of the house more often and finding a hobby, rather than medication. In doing so, Neera recognizes the role played by society’s restrictions as the cause of Teresa’s hysteria. It is hysteria that allows Teresa to avoid the demands and expectations that accompany her condition. Through her hysterical attacks, in fact, Teresa is no longer the self-sacrificing daughter but one who “demand[s] service and attention from others” (Showalter 1985, 133). Neera places the blame for Teresa’s fate on the “fathers” of society: Capiva le ragioni del padre: aveva troppo vissuto in quell’ambiente e in quello solo, per non essere persuasa che la sua condizione di donna le imponeva anzitutto la rassegnazione al suo destino,—un destino ch’ella non era libera di dirigere—che doveva accettare così come le giungeva, mozzato dalle esigenze della famiglia, sottoposto ai bisogni e ai desideri degli altri.(Neera 1976, 170)

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Teresa’s desire to hurt someone derives from the frustration of an unjust situation, a desire to make someone pay for what is happening to her. Neera denounces “la condizione di donna” [woman’s condition] as that which limits women’s options for fulfillment in patriarchal society, identifying as the source of Teresa’s hysteria precisely the conflict between natural impulses and social constraints: “la società che le dice respingi, la natura che le grida accetta” [society that tells her to reject, nature that screams at her to accept] (Neera 1976, 154). In Teresa, Neera localizes in the paternal figure the source of female oppression. 3 Signor Caccia obstructs Teresa and Orlandi’s relationship from the first day the two meet. 4 Upon returning home from her first outing with Orlandi, at the mere sight of her father, described as full of pomp and imposing (Neera 1976, 92), Teresa loosens her arm from that of Orlandi, terrified by the thought her father might discover their relationship. It is, in fact, only her father’s death that frees Teresa from her daughterly duties. In the conclusion of the novel, in fact, Teresa leaves her home to finally join Orlandi, who is by then ill himself and alone. Teresa’s “emancipation,” however, is quite limited: at this point in Teresa’s life, there is no one left that she must care for and no one left to prevent her from leaving. Teresa leaves to fulfill once again the role of caretaker, only this time to the man she loves. As Teresa prepares her suitcases for the trip, she justifies her decision to her only remaining friend: “Ebbene, dirai ai zelanti che ho pagato con tutta la mia vita questo momento di libertà. È abbastanza caro nevvero?” [Well, you will tell the zealous that I have paid for this moment of freedom with my whole life. It’s quite expensive, is it not?] (Neera 1976, 202). Although Neera criticizes, through the portrayal of hysteria, the injustice of this character’s situation, Teresa’s actions in the end of the novel appear rather superficial and do not constitute a true liberation for this character. Luigi Baldacci rightly observes regarding the novel’s conclusion: “Questa seconda vita di Teresa, in cui trionferà l’ideale, possiamo anche immaginarcela come verosimile, ma artisticamente vera è sola la sua prima vita: cioè il romanzo—meno due pagine— che abbiamo sott’occhio” [We can even imagine as possible this second life of Teresa, in which the ideal triumphs, but artistically true is only her first life: in other words, the novel—minus two pages—that we have before us] (1976, xi). In her next novel, L’indomani, Neera condemns the way in which bourgeois society prepares women for marriage with false expectations, revealing

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that marriage does not provide women the happiness and fulfillment promised by society. 5 The denunciation is explicit and represents one of the harshest condemnations of bourgeois marriage in nineteenth-century literature: Per le donne oneste [. . .] l’amore non può essere che un dovere o un peccato; un contratto stipulato, firmato, reso sacramento, reso dovere civile, eguagliato all’ordine sacro o alla vendita di un podere; oppure uno strappo alle convenienze, alle leggi, alla religione, all’onore. . . . Nel primo caso l’uomo furbo lo idealizza. Egli dice alle sue vittime:—Siete la gioia del focolare domestico, le depositarie del nome e dell’avvenire nostro, le regine della nostra casa; siete la pace, siete la sicurezza. Potrebbe soggiungere: Siete il minor male che noi scegliamo dopo d’aver conosciuti tutti gli altri, siete la panacea delle nostre infermità, il letto di riposo dopo il letto di campo, la sinecura dei nostri vecchi giorni. Per cambio della vostra gioventù, del vostro candore, dell’ideale di tutta la vostra vita, noi che non abbiamo più né giovinezza, né candore, né ideali, vi offriamo una cosa così comune, così facile, una cosa che trovereste sul canto d’ogni via, se noi non ce ne fossimo fatto un esclusivo monopolio, crescendola di valore col negarvene la libertà, sostituendo il decoro, il pudore, la virtù umana alle divine leggi della natura. E fin da bambine, all’età degli zuccherini, vi si fa balenare davanti agli occhi quest’altro zuccherino, ammonendovi se ve lo meriterete con la docilità, la modestia, la pazienza, l’abnegazione. (Neera 1990, 47–48) [For honest women . . . love can only be a duty or a sin; a stipulated contract, signed, made sacrament, made civil duty, equal to the sacred order or to the selling of an estate; or a break with tradition, with laws, with religion, with honor. . . . In the first case the clever man idealizes it. He says to his victims— you are the joy of the home, the guardian of our name and future, the queen of our house; you are peace, you are security. He could add: you are the lesser evil that we have chosen after having examined all the others. You are the remedy to our infirmities, the bed of relaxation after the bed of the field, the occupation of our old age. In exchange for your youth, your purity, the ideal of your lives, we who do not possess anymore youth, or purity, or ideals, offer you something that is so common, so easy, something that you could find on every street corner, if we didn’t make of it an exclusive monopoly, increasing its value by denying your freedom, substituting décor, modesty, human virtue for the divine laws of nature. And since you were children, from the age of sugar treats, we dangled before your eyes this other treat, admonishing you to earn it with docility, modesty, patience, abnegation.]

Neera indicates patriarchal society, which categorizes love for women as either duty or sin, as the cause of women’s unhappiness and hysteria. Refusing the notion of marriage as a duty void of passion and love, the protagonist realizes her profound unhappiness when married life does not correspond to her fantasies. Marta, like Laura and Teresa, desires attention and love, providing another example within Neera’s narrative production of a female character

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whose hysteria results from repression of sexual desire. Azzolini notes regarding Neera’s novels that “la forza e la presenza del corpo femminile, il corpo della donna che ha bisogno dell’amore e della maternità, pena la consunzione, la malattia, l’emarginazione triste delle zitelle” [the force and presence of the female body, the body of the woman that needs love and maternity, otherwise she faces consumption, disease, the sad marginalization of the spinsters] (1996, 23). In portraying the physical rebellion of Marta’s body, Neera again explores hysteria as a form of passive resistance for women against the social structures that do not acknowledge their desire to express their sexuality. Suggesting the source of the disease in the character’s sexual dissatisfaction and demonstrating the link between the psychical and the physical—observed by Jean-Martin Charcot and later by Freud in their hysterical patients—Neera portrays how Marta’s body suffers because of her nervous condition. She is described as thin, with lifeless eyes and suffering from long depressions (Neera 1990, 65). Marta often finds herself alone in the evenings, while her husband Alberto is out with friends, and her solitude only increases the opportunity for hysterical attacks. The following passage reveals Marta’s desperate and frustrated desire for passion and marks one of the few examples of female self-gratification in Italian literature of the period: Il tempo passava, e dall’immobilità angosciosa Marta entrava in uno stato di allucinazione sensuale. Con mano inconscia slacciava i ganci dell’abito, allentava i nastri, cedendo a una sensazione misteriosa di abbandono, con dei brividi a fior di pelle, la bocca assetata, arida, le braccia aperte disperatamente. [. . .] Perduta nelle immagini d’amore scioglieva i capelli, e attorcigliandoseli sul volto ne aspirava l’aroma giovanile, gemendo il proprio nome—Marta, Marta! [. . .] Ma quando suo marito avvicinandosele mormorava:—Andiamo, via . . . —tutto il suo corpo si irrigidiva, si gettava indietro.—Le donne— concludeva Alberto voltandosi dall’altra parte—non si arriva mai a comprenderle. E Marta, sotto le coltri, piangeva. (Neera 1990, 75–76) [Time passed, and from anguished immobility Marta entered a state of sensual hallucination. With unconscious hand, she untied the hooks of her dress, loosened the ribbons, letting herself go to a mysterious sensation of abandonment, with nervous shivers, her mouth thirsty, dry, her arms open in desperation. [. . .] Lost amongst images of love, she let her hair down, and twisting it on her face she inhaled the youthful aroma, moaning her name—Marta, Marta! [. . .] But when her husband came near her, murmuring: —Come on, please . . . — her whole body tensed up, she pulled away.—Women—concluded Alberto, turning away—one can never understand them. And Marta, beneath the covers, cried.]

Marta’s desire for sensual love manifests itself only in her daydreams. When confronted with the opportunity for sexual satisfaction with her husband,

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Marta represses her desire. Unsatisfied in her marriage, Marta remains in a state of sexual immaturity and frustration due to her own repression of desire and her husband’s inability and unwillingness to comprehend it. Neera expertly reveals the frustration of Marta’s situation, desperate for love but unable to live out her sexuality outside of her fantasies. Neera’s attention to the causes of hysteria in the female characters of her novels reflects her status as woman within the same society that conditions Laura, Teresa, and Marta’s existence. Neera’s point of view, in fact, ultimately coincides with that of her protagonists. 6 In her autobiographical novel Una giovinezza del secolo XIX, Neera reveals the special meaning Teresa’s story held for her and others: Non altrimenti la patetica storia della donna a cui manca l’amore germinava da lunghi anni nel segreto delle mie sofferenze, nelle ingiustizie di cui ero stata vittima, nella persecuzione che aveva attossicato fin dalle sorgenti la mia ingenua giovinezza. Era il dramma di tante anime femminili che si era ripercosso attraverso la deviazione di un’anima sulla speciale sensibilità dell’anima mia. (Neera 1980, 124) [Just as the pathetic story of the woman who lacks love had been growing for many years in the secrecy of my sufferings, in the injustices of which I was victim, in the persecution that had ruined my naive youth since its beginning. The drama of many female souls had influenced the special sensibility of my soul.]

Neera’s identity as woman and her middle-class upbringing led her to identify with Teresa’s situation and at times to interject her personal voice, as this excerpt from Teresa reveals: “Quale infame ingiustizia pesa dunque ancora sulla nostra società, che si chiama incivilità, se una fanciulla deve scegliere tra il ridicolo della verginità e la vergogna del matrimonio di convenienza?” [What terrible injustice still weighs on our society, which calls itself civilized, if a young girl must choose between the ridicule of virginity and the shame of a marriage of convenience?] (Neera 1976, 180). Here it is not Teresa expressing awareness of her condition, but rather the author’s voice denouncing the injustice of the protagonist’s situation. It is again Neera, and not Teresa, who identifies and denounces the conflict between natural impulses and social constraints as the source of Teresa’s hysteria. Neera’s 1888 article “Le donne che piangono” sheds further light on her objectives as well as those of other women writers of her time. Defining herself a “sperimentale o psichica” [experimental or psychic] writer, two adjectives laden with literary references for the time, 7 Neera affirms the need to denounce female suffering in society:

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SIBILLA ALERAMO’S UNA DONNA The example of female illness offered by Aleramo’s Una donna (1906) reveals how illness functioned as a way of portraying female oppression even twenty or more years after novels such as those examined so far. Una donna presents, through the character of the protagonist’s mother, the emergence of mental illness as directly connected to the suffocation within motherhood of female independence and sexuality. Aleramo demonstrates how, as Annarita Buttafuoco notes, the fin de siècle cult of motherhood in Italy “affermava il valore sociale della maternità . . . ma che finì col tempo per assumere la maternità quasi come caratteristica distintiva, peculiare, del femminile e quindi destino ineluttabile per le donne” [affirmed the social value of maternity . . . but over time ended up making maternity an almost distinctive, unique characteristic of that which is feminine and therefore inescapable destiny for women] (1988, “Vite esemplari,” 150). In Una donna, sacrifice is portrayed, in fact, as necessary not just for mothers but for women in general. Being a woman is synonymous with the forgoing of one’s aspirations, as evidenced through the protagonist’s words: “Amare sacrificarsi e soccombere! Questo il destino suo e forse di tutte le donne?” [Love sacrifice and surrender! This is her destiny and maybe of all women?] (Aleramo 1997, 55). Aleramo suggests that while some women passively surrender their aspirations as a condition of motherhood, as in the case of the protagonist’s mother-in-law, whose purpose in life was found in giving birth to and raising children (“Dieci figli ho avuto ed allattato io!” [I had and nursed ten children!] (Aleramo 1997, 60)), for other women in the novel, the female “duty” of self-sacrifice finds resolution only in escape, either real, as in the case of the protagonist who decides to leave her family, or figuratively, as in the mother’s mental illness. Regarding Aleramo’s novel, Flora Bassanese notes that “insanity is the consummation of the bounded female condition” (1990, 141). The mother’s words from a letter found by the protagonist years later

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reveal as much: “Debbo partire . . . qui impazzisco . . . lui non mi ama più. . . . Ed io soffro tanto che non so più voler bene ai bambini . . . debbo andarmene, andarmene. . . . Poveri figli miei, forse è meglio per loro!” [I must leave . . . I am going crazy here . . . he does not love me anymore. . . . And I suffer so much that I do not know how to love the children anymore . . . I must leave, leave. . . . My poor children, maybe it is better for them!] (Aleramo 1997, 192). The protagonist advises her mother against sacrifice, foreshadowing the route that she herself will follow later in the novel with her decision to leave her husband and son: “Ubbidisci al comando della tua coscienza, rispetta sopra tutto la tua dignità. Madre: sii forte, resisti lontana, nella vita, lavorando, lottando. Conservati da lontano da noi; sapremo valutare il tuo strazio d’oggi: risparmiaci lo spettacolo della tua lenta disfatta qui, di questa agonia che senti inevitabile” [Obey the command of your conscience, respect, above all, your own dignity. Mother: be strong, go far, in life, working, fighting. Save yourself far from us, we will be able to appreciate your present torment. Spare us the sight of your slow decline, of this agony that you feel unavoidable] (Aleramo 1997, 193). With these words, the protagonist reveals her resistance against the social order that imposes upon women the roles of wife and mother and the ideal of selfsacrifice. The use of expressions such as “sii forte,” “resisti,” and “lottando,” makes evident the difficulty for women in seeking an existence outside maternity. The mother’s progressive mental instability, which brings her to attempt suicide and later to be confined within a mental institution, is ultimately the result of her inability to assert her identity outside of her familial role. Bassanese further notes: “The melancholia, hysteria, and masochism of the Mother are brought about by her enclosure in the spaces and limitations of marriage, which afford her no room of her own in which to define herself” (1990, 141). Aleramo suggests that the idealization of maternity in fin de siècle Italian culture, which entails the sacrifice of women’s aspirations outside the family, brings women to forfeit their desires in favor of what Rita Cavigioli refers to as the “retaggio materno di autoannullamento” [the maternal legacy of selfcancellation] (1995, 105). The protagonist’s mother succumbs to her destiny as woman entrapped by society’s restrictions, but within her submission also lies her rejection, through her attempted suicide and mental illness, of a life conditioned by society’s limitations. In such a way, Aleramo presents mental illness as a passive and silent resistance to the patriarchal order that imposes the roles of wife and mother. The contrast between the lives and choices of the protagonist and those of her mother renders Aleramo’s message even stronger. Fabio Girelli-Carasi notes the similarity, up to a certain point, between events in the lives of both the protagonist and her mother: “Both women are trapped in unhappy unful-

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filling marriages with punitive paranoid-personality type husbands. Both women respond with outbreaks of illness to episodes of psychological cruelty, emotional neglect and abuse perpetrated by their husbands; and both emerge from the experience of one attempted suicide in a catatonic state that lingers on for weeks” (1989, 277). The protagonist is aware of these parallels and therefore also of the dangers for herself if she is unable to differentiate herself from her mother: “La sua debolezza, la sua rinuncia alla lotta mi esacerbavano tanto più in quanto ero costretta a riconoscermi ora dei punti di contatto con lei nella mia rassegnazione al destino” [Her weakness, her refusal to fight made it that much harder for me, as I was forced to recognize now some points in common with her in my surrender to destiny] (Aleramo 1997, 51). It is important to note however that the protagonist makes a conscious decision to avoid such a fate for herself: “Ero uscita dal recinto di dolore con un tremito interno, senza poter piangere né parlare, sentendo una sofferenza fisica che mi prostrava e rivoltava insieme, qualcosa di oscuro e d’inesprimibile, come un desiderio sconfinato di evasione: evadere dalla vita, smarrire la strada che conduce al porto della pazzia” [I had emerged from the enclosure of pain with an internal tremor, without being able to cry or talk, feeling a physical suffering that both crushed and disgusted me, something dark and inexpressible, like an endless desire of escape: escape from life, lose the way that leads to insanity] (Aleramo 1997, 58). At this point, which marks her “rebirth,” the daughter, unlike her mother, decides to reject the role and limitations imposed upon her: “Ed ero più che mai persuasa che spetta alla donna rivendicare se stessa, ch’ella sola può rivelar l’essenza vera della propria psiche, composta, sì d’amore e di maternità e di pietà, ma anche, anche di dignità umana!” [And I was more than ever convinced that it was up to women to vindicate themselves, that only they can reveal the true essence of their psyche, composed, yes of love and maternity and compassion, but also, also human dignity!] (Aleramo 1997, 159). Aleramo suggests that only those women who consciously and purposefully resist can avoid an existence based on submission. The protagonist’s decision to abandon her husband and family home, including her maternal role, to pursue her personal aspirations outside the family represents an active resistance. For this character, the rejection of maternity represents her refusal to sacrifice her ambitions and desires. After much reflection, the protagonist comes to understand the importance of her decision to leave her son as crucial to the right to her own identity: “Non esistevo io dunque indipendentemente da lui, non avevo, oltre al dovere di allevarlo, oltre alla gioia di assisterlo, doveri miei altrettanto imperiosi?” [Did I not exist independently from him, did I not have, beyond the need to raise him, beyond the joy to assist him, my duties that were just as commanding?] (Aleramo 1997, 148–49). By choosing a new life outside the “retaggio materno di autoannullamento,” the protagonist en-

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acts her form of rebellion against society, in opposition to the example of passive and silent resistance offered by her mother. By refusing to sacrifice her aspirations, the protagonist brings about her own form of rebellion against society’s restrictions and expectations. She establishes a new order where the worth of a woman’s life is more important than fulfilling the role of wife and mother. In such a way, the protagonist’s rebellion is a positive one because she uses it to achieve a new identity for herself. The protagonist confirms as much when she expresses, after the decision to leave her family, her feeling of belonging to a new order, in which she finds a sense of peace and fulfilment that was unknown within the restrictive order which had previously governed her existence: “E tutto si sovrappone, e si confonde, e una cosa sola, su tutto splende: la pace mia interiore, la mia sensazione costante d’essere nell’ordine, di poter in qualunque istante chiudere senza rimorso gli occhi per l’ultima volta” [And everything overlaps, and gets confused, and one thing above all shines on it all: my internal peace, my constant feeling of being in order, of being able to close my eyes at any moment for the last time without remorse] (Aleramo 1997, 219). The words of fin de siècle Italian emancipist Teresa Labriola shed further light on the importance of the liberation brought about by the protagonist’s actions: “La donna che contiene in sè il significato del proprio essere, ha superata la cerchia nella quale era stata rinchiusa da secoli. Essa ha superato il vecchio tipo femminile, che aveva fuori di sè il proprio significato” [The woman that possesses within herself the importance of her own being has overcome the circle in which she had been enclosed for centuries. She has overcome the old feminine type, that found outside of oneself its own importance] (1910, 86). Una donna’s protagonist enacts a positive resistance to patriarchal society’s restrictions, finding within herself the meaning and value of her existence and rejecting the roles imposed by society. She now finds fulfillment in writing and in belonging to a new order that values her contribution as more than just wife and mother: “Domani potrei anche morire. . . . E l’ultimo spasimo di questa mia vita sarà quello di scrivere queste pagine” [I could die even tomorrow . . . and the last spasm of my life would be to write these pages] (Aleramo 1997, 219). NOTES 1. In 1864 Louis Pasteur demonstrated the effectiveness of sterilization in fighting infection. Robert Koch’s discovery of the bacteria responsible for tuberculosis dates to 1882. The first use of the term bacterio in the Italian language dates to 1881 by biologist and botanist Orazio Comes in Rassegna di opere filosofiche, scientifiche e letterarie. See Orazio Comes, “Il protoplasma dei bacterii.” Rassegna critica di opere filosofiche, scientifiche e letterarie, I (1881): 13–40. 2. Neera, pseudonym for Anna Radius Zuccari, was one of the most prolific and successful writers of late nineteenth-century Italy. Her presence in the history of Italian literature is

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connected to a vast narrative production that goes from Un romanzo (1876) to Una giovinezza del secolo XIX, published posthumously in 1919. The protagonists of her novels and short stories are women struggling to fulfill the traditional roles of wife, mother, and daughter in fin de siècle Italian society. Neera is also author to numerous moralistic essays, published in journals such as Nuova Antologia, Rivista d’Italia, Pungolo, Illustrazione Italiana, La Lettura, Vita Nuova, L’Idea Liberale, and Il Marzocco. 3. In Teresa, the woman–child’s subordination is confirmed by more than one relationship. The relationship that already exists between the protagonist’s parents, Signor and Signora Caccia, foreshadows the relationship of inferiority that develops between father and daughter as Teresa comes of age. After years of working, eating, and living together in the same dark room, Teresa and her mother, both victims of the father’s oppression, begin to share the same tired resignation and other physical characteristics. 4. The father is presented throughout the novel as an ominous figure, characterized by terrible eyebrows, ferocious glances that instill terror, and shrill voice. Neera sums up Signor Caccia’s personality as follows: “Lui, il padre, uomo da poco e presuntuoso, [. . .] tiranuccio volgare, aveva già stabilito, col suo precedente, il dominio assoluto del sesso forte” [He, the father, a small and presumptuous man, a vulgar little tyrant, had already established, with his example, the absolute dominion of the strong sex] (Neera 1976, 87). 5. Bruce Merry notes how “Neera devoted herself with inordinate concentration to the theme of female unpreparedness” (1994, 288). The entries prepared by Neera for the 1881 volume Dizionario d’igiene per le famiglie, written in collaboration with physician Paolo Mantegazza, represent another of Neera’s attempts to address female unpreparedness. In this text Neera instructs women on issues ranging from breastfeeding to coffee consumption. 6. Neera, of a middle-class Milanese family, was wife to Milanese banker Emilio Radius and mother of two children. 7. Experimental was synonymous with naturalist, given Zola’s 1880 essay on the experimental novel. Capuana often used the term psychological to describe verist representation. 8. Neera, “Le donne che piangono” Fanfulla della Domenica (April 15, 1888). Excerpts from the article have been published in Arslan 1998, 59.

Chapter Three

Feigning Sickness and Female Agency in Italian Literature

Fin de siècle novels that portray women as consciously acting out their infirmity provide an alternative perspective on illness and femininity with respect to those novels examined in the previous chapter, in which illness functions as signifier of castigation and submission. Because of the power and control women exhibit over their bodies, performing illness can be seen to represent a type of self-mastery, a trait Oppenheim defines as “the hallmark of masculinity” (1991, 211). Women who adopt such behavior in the novels that will be examined in this chapter are not only empowered through their illness, but often become threatening figures within their environment. I will examine how performing illness transforms women into superior female types who are not only irresistible, but also dominate the men of their time, the “inquieta e raffinata gioventù moderna” [restless and refined modern youth] noted by Serao in her novel Cuore Infermo, as referenced in this study’s introduction. In La carne, la morte e il diavolo nella letteratura romantic, Mario Praz notes men’s attraction for diseased femininity: “l’uomo prova orrore per la donna e insieme un’attrattiva proprio in quel senso d’orrore” [man is horrified by woman yet also feels an attraction precisely toward that sense of horror] (1999, 244). Praz appropriately suggests the power and influence of this female figure over men when he notes that “la donna non solo rappresenta il principio attivo nella distribuzione del piacere, ma anche nel reggimento del mondo. La femmina è aggressiva, il maschio vacilla” [woman not only represents the active principle in the distribution of pleasure, but also in ordering the world. The female is aggressive, the male falters] (1999, 239). This chapter will examine the portrayal of the empowering and liberating effects of illness for women who adopt it as a chosen form of behavior. 67

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IGINIO UGO TARCHETTI’S FOSCA Tarchetti was the first writer in Italy to place female hysteria at the center of a novel, making the female protagonist of Fosca (1869) a hysterical woman who uses her disease to claim her right to love and also to express her discontent with society’s restrictive categorization of women according to patriarchal standards of beauty and femininity. 1 Through her illness Fosca takes revenge against the stigma associated with her ugliness and intelligence, untraditional traits for women of the time, which make Fosca an outcast. Fosca’s illness renders her different, but she is also rendered different by a variety of other factors, such as her failed marriage, her inability to have children, her ugliness, and her intellect, described in the novel as far superior to the norm for a woman. Fosca reveals, in her conversations with, and letters to, her beloved Giorgio, her sense of failure in the eyes of society: “Tu non sai cosa voglia dire per una donna non esser bella. Per noi la bellezza è tutto. Non vivendo che per essere amate, e non potendo essere che alla condizione di essere avvenenti, l’esistenza di una donna brutta diventa la più terribile, la più angosciosa di tutte le torture” [You do not know what it means for a woman not to be beautiful. For us, beauty is everything. Living only to be loved, and being able only to be attractive, the existence of an ugly woman becomes the most terrible, the most anguished of all the tortures] (Tarchetti 1981, 100). Aware of her ugliness, Fosca is also aware of its side effect: that of precluding her from finding love. Fosca’s previously failed marriage and inability to be a mother served to increase her isolation and sense of failure. However, rather than representing a source of weakness, Fosca’s hysterical symptoms illustrate her attempt to fight against the social structure that categorizes her as an outcast. In describing Fosca’s symptoms, Giovanna Rosa notes that they represent “non solo gli alibi per difendersi dall’idiozia di un mondo gretto [. . .] ma gli indizi sintomatici attraverso cui una donna brutta e intelligente rivendica la libertà degli istinti primari contro tabù e rimozioni: la potenza del desiderio di Fosca è travolgente, ostinata, irrefrenabile come una patologia di cui si ignora la vera origine e che appunto perciò tanto più si teme” [not only the alibi to defend herself from the idiocy of a wretched world . . . but the symptomatic clues with which an ugly and intelligent woman claims, against taboos and repressions, the freedom of basic instincts: the strength of Fosca’s desire is overwhelming, daring, uncontrollable like a pathology whose true origin is unknown and which is therefore feared so much more] (1997, 146). Interestingly, Fosca is first introduced in the novel through her illness: she does not appear initially in person, but rather through descriptions provided by other characters and through the sound of her bone-chilling screams. Giorgio is confronted, before even meeting Fosca, with the doctor’s analysis of her hysteria as a kind of

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phenomenon which science has failed to understand and for which there is no cure. 2 Fosca’s physical symptoms are, in fact, those commonly associated in the nineteenth century with this disease: headaches, seizures, convulsions, fainting, and frequent and dramatic mood changes, described in the novel as truly frightful attacks of sadness and desperation (Tarchetti 1981, 121). Fosca’s condition not only precedes her, it characterizes her: her identity is entwined with the notion of infirmity as she is defined by her doctor as a walking collection of all possible illnesses. Through the doctor’s description of hysteria as a fashionable illness among women “un’infermità viziosa che ha il doppio vantaggio di provocare e di giustificare” [a troubling sickness that has the double advantage of provoking and justifying] (Tarchetti 1981, 49), Tarchetti questions the authenticity of the disease while also suggesting its liberating effects for Fosca: is her hysteria authentic illness or does it serve a further objective? The notion that Fosca is merely “acting a part” is explored further through Giorgio’s reflections on her behavior: “essa aveva del talento, e una distinzione di modi affatto speciale. Non poteva però indovinare se quel suo dissimulare tali virtù, quell’aria di non avvertirle fosse vera inconsapevolezza, o artifizio” [she had talent, and a truly special refinement of manners. He could not tell, however, if her disguise of such virtues, that semblance of not being aware of them was true unawareness, or artifice] (Tarchetti 1981, 57). Tarchetti further suggests the theatricality and artificiality of Fosca’s disease through the description of her symptoms before Giorgio, or the reader, even meet this character. Her screams, for example, described by Giorgio as horribly sharp, agonizing, and prolonged, are presented as abnormal and as not belonging to a human voice (Tarchetti 1981, 48). When Giorgio finally meets Fosca in person, he is struck by the physicality of her illness, which has ravaged her body so that she is presented as exhibiting a disproportionateness in her features and an extreme, excessive thinness, which a slight effort of imagination could allow one to detect her skeleton. 3 The theme of disease in the novel extends beyond, however, the mere description of physical symptoms. The representation of hysteria in Fosca is problematized through the presentation of disease as natural and therefore normal for Fosca. Describing illness as her normal state, Fosca reveals to Giorgio: “Vi ho detto che ero malata? Fu un abuso di parole. Ne faccio sempre. Per esserlo converrebbe che io uscissi dalla normalità di questo stato, che avessi un intervallo di sanità” [I told you that I was sick? It was a bad choice of words. I always do that. To be such I would have to emerge from the normalcy of this condition, and have an interval of good health] (Tarchetti 1981, 53). It is possible to read in these words Tarchetti’s criticism of the bourgeois conception of normalcy. Tarchetti’s ideology of diversity reflects the social position of an author who belongs to the scapigliatura, the artistic group which defined itself in Cletto Arrighi’s 1861 manifesto text La

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Scapigliatura e il 6 febbrajo as “vero pandemonio del secolo; personificazione della follia che sta fuori dai manicomii; serbatoio del disordine, della imprevidenza, dello spirito di rivolta e di opposizione a tutti gli ordini stabiliti” [true pandemonium of the century; personification of the madness that exists outside insane asylums, of carelessness, of spirit of revolt and opposition to all established orders] (1988, 27). As scapigliato, Tarchetti rejects bourgeois notions of normalcy and in Fosca disease becomes a metaphor for diversity in general. Tarchetti further problematizes Fosca’s hysteria by portraying Fosca as a conscious victim who subverts the established order through her illness. Her ugliness, illness, and ultimately her condition of being different allow her to evade society’s conventions and expectations by excluding her from the rules prohibiting women from striving for no other purpose than to please and be loved. Fosca utilizes her condition of difference to achieve what she wants and what would otherwise be considered unacceptable and inappropriate behavior for women, such as her ravenous appetite for reading and her aggressive actions to obtain Giorgio’s love and spend time alone with him. Fosca uses hysteria to bind Giorgio to her, reeling him in with an obsessive need for attention and requests for affection, which he feels obligated to satisfy for fear of endangering her health. In a letter to Giorgio, Fosca outlines the history of her illness, describing in particular an intense need for affection: “Io nacqui malata, uno dei sintomi più grave e più profondi della mia infermità era il bisogno che sentiva di affezionarmi a tutto ciò che mi circondava, ma in modo violento, subito, estremo” [I was born ill, one of the most serious and profound symptoms of my illness was the need I felt to feel affection for everything that surrounded me, but in a violent, immediate, extreme way] (Tarchetti 1981, 97). The excessive nature of Fosca’s desire for love, itself unacceptable for women of the time, is presented as a form of illness. Tarchetti addresses the issue of hysteria as a means for women to express themselves more freely, thereby presenting Fosca as master and manipulator, rather than victim, of her disease. Fosca herself is aware of the freedom that both her ugliness and her illness allow her, when she reveals to Giorgio: “Se oggi stesso . . . ho osato tenere con voi alcuni discorsi che nessun’altra donna avrebbe tenuto, e ho voluto quasi provocarli, l’ho fatto perché la mia bruttezza mi garantiva contro tutti i pericoli di una simile discussione, e anche contro il sospetto di essermivi abbandonata per uno scopo biasimevole. La mia deformità ha almeno questo vantaggio” [If today . . . I dared to discuss with you some things that no other woman would have, and I almost wanted to provoke them, I did so because my ugliness protected me against all the dangers of a similar discussion, and even against the suspicion of surrendering to an unacceptable purpose. My deformity has at least this advantage] (Tarchetti 1981, 64). Davide Del Principe argues, in fact, that “Fosca has lucidly come to terms with the social constructs of her

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ugliness, and has decided to dispute this conditioning by feigning submission, while in reality using it to her own advantage” (1996, 61). Society’s restrictions would prevent Fosca from freely expressing and fulfilling her desires and aspirations, but hysteria allows her such freedom. Mary Russo states in The Female Grotesque that “[t]hrough hysterical breakdown, the woman assumes her nonexistence and constitutes herself as ‘subject’” (1994, 47). Fosca, the hysterical woman, asserts her own identity and aspirations and rejects the limitations imposed by society. Enrico Ghidetti notes the function of disease for this writer: “L’evasione da un ordine ipocrita e oppressivo si realizza così nella dimensione della malattia che si configura come il nucleo ispiratore del romanzo Fosca” [The evasion from a hypocritical and oppressive order is achieved in the dimension of disease that constitutes the inspirational nucleus of the novel Fosca] (1968, 264–65). Significantly, it is due to Fosca’s difference, that she and Giorgio can spend significant time together alone, because her ugliness and illness remove suspicions of a love affair. While Giorgio is at first repulsed by Fosca’s appearance and illness, declaring initially his inability to find adequate words to express her ugliness, it is interesting to observe how, throughout the course of the novel, he comes to develop feelings for Fosca, in the end choosing her over Clara, the character in the novel who, as their names suggest, represents Fosca’s antithesis. Initially Clara is the “positive” female character in the novel, not only beautiful but an enlightening and salvific presence in Giorgio’s world. Giorgio’s description of Clara early in the novel conforms to an idealized and contradictory notion of femininity. Giorgio describes her as having a strong, just, strict nature, with nothing fatuous, weak, or childish in her character; and yet, Giorgio claims, no woman had ever been more affectionate, sweet, flexible, caring, more eminently woman (Tarchetti 1981, 33). Clara performs the role of the maternal figure that cares for Giorgio when he is ill and, in fact, Giorgio identifies his initial attraction to Clara in her similarity to his mother (Tarchetti 1981, 33). Throughout the course of the novel, however, it is possible to note the reversal of characteristics associated with Fosca and Clara as well as the reversal of Giorgio’s attraction for these two female characters. When Giorgio chooses to love Fosca, his choice represents a choice of ugliness over beauty and illness over health. During Giorgio and Fosca’s first and only night of passion together, Giorgio’s thoughts reveal the combination of seduction and illness 4 : “Il suo volto pareva illuminato da un entusiasmo gagliardo che ne rendeva meno sgradevole la deformità; [. . .] in quel momento nissuno avrebbe detto che Fosca era assolutamente brutta” [Her face seemed illuminated by a healthy enthusiasm that made her deformity less unpleasant; . . . at that moment no one would have said that Fosca was absolutely ugly] (Tarchetti 1981, 173). By “conquering” Giorgio and obtaining his love and attention, Fosca succeeds, due primarily to her illness, in gaining what she wants.

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Clara, on the other hand, takes on the symptoms of illness, characteristics that had been associated thus far with Fosca. When Clara ends her relationship with Giorgio to dedicate herself, as she explains in her letter to Giorgio, to her duties as wife and mother, she is no longer associated with health and beauty, but rather sickness (Tarchetti 1981, 156). Upon learning of Clara’s decision to end their relationship, Giorgio’s perception of Clara changes inversely, compared to that of Fosca, from initial infatuation to horror: “In quell’orribile confusione di idee che s’era formata dentro di me, una ve n’era ben certa, ben chiara, ben definita: io aveva amato un mostro” [In that horrible confusion of ideas that had formed inside me, one idea was very certain, very clear, very defined: I had loved a monster] (Tarchetti 1981, 167). Clara’s “monstrosity,” another metaphor for diversity, is revealed only when she adapts herself to the socially accepted role of wife and mother. The reversal of qualities between Clara and Fosca reveals further, therefore, Tarchetti’s refusal of the bourgeois conception of normalcy. In the transferal of Giorgio’s attraction from Clara to Fosca and in making Fosca, the ugly and diseased woman, the love interest of the protagonist, one can recognize the author’s refusal to objectify women or adhere to patriarchal conventions of beauty and femininity. While Fosca manipulates her illness to fulfill her own desires and aspirations, Clara succumbs, both psychologically and physically, to economic and social pressures which require her to fulfill her duty as a wife and mother. In such a way, Tarchetti suggests the dual function of disease in the novel. Fosca does not succumb to her illness; she uses it to claim her right to love and attention, even though she does not fulfill society’s standards of beauty or femininity. Del Principe notes accordingly that “Fosca’s rebellion against oppression, abandoning values of the obedient Angel of the House for those of the New Woman, and her emerging independence, propose her a prototype of the modern heroine” (2006, 420). On the other hand, for those overcome by society’s expectations, like Clara and Giorgio, illness represents the manifestation of their status as victims. Giovanna Rosa notes, regarding Fosca, that “la malattia può essere la risposta dolorosa elaborata dal narcisismo ferito: la voglia di piacere e del piacere, censurata dalle norme di convenienza sociale e dalle autodifese psichiche, esplode in grida e convulsioni strazianti” [disease can be the painful response elaborated by wounded narcissism: the desire to please and be pleased, banned by the norms of social propriety and by psychic self-defense, explodes in screams and agonizing convulsions] (1997, 146). Although Giorgio comes to love and desire Fosca by the end of the novel, their night of passion together is marked by an uncontrollable sense of fear and horror on Giorgio’s part, confirming Praz’s observation on “un’attrattiva proprio in quel senso d’orrore” [an attraction exactly toward that sense of horror] (1999, 244) noted earlier: “Non era la mia anima, non era la mia

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volontà; era il sangue, erano le fibre, i muscoli, i nervi che si ribellavano a quell’amplesso. L’immaginazione raddoppiò il mio ribrezzo” [It wasn’t my soul; it wasn’t my will; the blood, the fibers, the muscles, the nerves rebelled against that embrace. Imagination doubled my disgust] (Tarchetti 1981, 174). Interestingly, the following day, Giorgio is plagued by what seems to be the same disease as Fosca’s: Il mio respiro si arrestò, le mie vene parvero scoppiare, il mio cuore schiantarsi; una tenebra mi passò davanti agli occhi, i miei muscoli si contrassero con uno spasimo atroce, brancicai un momento come per afferrarmi a qualche cosa, proruppi in un urlo acuto, disperato, straziante quale non aveva inteso mai uscire da petto umano, se non forse da quello di Fosca, e caddi fra le braccia del dottore che era accorso in mio aiuto. (Tarchetti 1981, 181) [My breath stopped, my veins seemed to burst, my heart explode; a darkness passed before my eyes, my muscles contracted with an atrocious spasm, I stumbled for a moment as if to grasp onto something, I let go in an acute, desperate, agonizing scream, the likes of which I had never heard leave a human chest, except perhaps Fosca’s, and I fell into the doctor’s arms who had rushed to my aid.]

Through Giorgio’s hysteria, Tarchetti presents his view on the “female” nature of this disease. Hysteria is not exclusively a women’s disease born from the uterus, as suggested for centuries within medical circles, but a disease of the female nature contagious for men of a weak and sensitive nature. 5 Giorgio’s conviction that he has contracted Fosca’s disease portrays, in fact, hysteria as a contagious disease: “m’era pur fisso in capo che lo spavento incussomi da que’ suoi accessi nervosi, la vicinanza continua, il contatto, quel non so che di morboso che vi era in lei, avrebbero dovuto, o tardi o tosto, sviluppare in me la stessa malattia” [I had convinced myself that the fright I experienced at her nervous attacks, the continual closeness, the contact, that undefined unhealthy quality that she possessed, should have, sooner or later, developed in me the same illness] (Tarchetti 1981, 138). Giorgio’s disease seems to be connected to his own dormant hysterical qualities. Like Fosca, Giorgio is different, revealing to Fosca that he has always felt different from others because of his “exceptional passions.” Giorgio’s role in his relationships with Clara and Fosca reflects the reversal of the traditional male role. He is “the male who is presented as a paradigm of sexual vulnerability” (Caesar 1987, 79). Giorgio’s vulnerability is hinted at from the beginning of the novel through his falling ill, which provides also the starting point for his relationship with Clara. Subsequently, Giorgio’s weakness of character is revealed in his submission to Fosca’s demands and his fear, upon discovery by others of his relationship with Fosca, of the “pena che una società ingiusta, fatua, goffamente crudele, av-

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rebbe gettato sopra di me” [punishment that an unjust, fatuous, awkwardly cruel society would have dealt me] (Tarchetti 1981, 161). 6 Giorgio’s compassion for Fosca’s condition, while sincere, also constitutes his inability to react and free himself from Fosca’s demands. Through Giorgio, Tarchetti adheres to the conception of hysteria as a disease that afflicts men who demonstrate a delicate and therefore “feminine” nature, revealing how in this novel the diseased protagonist not only seduces but also dominates and infects her male lover. In such a way, Fosca becomes, not only the threat to Giorgio’s aspirations but also a justification for his inability to achieve them. Recalling Serao’s reference to the “inquieta e raffinata gioventù moderna” [the restless and refined modern youth], Giorgio is, in fact, one of the early inept male characters of modern Italian literature. As Ghidetti notes, “Il nevrotico Giorgio che si sente morire accanto a Fosca, è il capostipite di malati e convalescenti più o meno illustri alla cui fantasia accesa e ai cui sensi raffinati dal dolore si presentava l’illusione di un’art d’exception” (1968, 265) [the neurotic Giorgio that feels as if he is dying next to Fosca, is the forefather of more or less illustrious diseased and convalescent men, to whose intense fantasy and senses refined from pain the illusion of an exceptional art was presented] (1968, 265). To use Praz’s terminology noted earlier, Fosca is the “aggressive” female, fighting for what she wants, in contrast to Giorgio, the “vacillating” male who ultimately not only succumbs to Fosca’s desires but also to her disease. MATILDE SERAO’S CUORE INFERMO AND FANTASIA Many of Serao’s novels present situations of female submission to a patriarchal order that does not privilege or even consider female fulfillment, reflecting the social and juridical reality of the writer’s time. As Serao acknowledged, in fact, in a 1907 article on Il Giorno: “Io so, come tante altre donne sanno, che, come sono composte e ordinate le leggi, nella società moderna, non vi è felicità possibile per la donna, in qualunque condizione ella si trovi” [I know, like many other women know, that, as modern society’s laws are made and structured, there is no possible happiness for women, in whatever condition they find themselves] (Scappaticci 1995, 119). In Italian Women Writers: A Bio-bibliographical Sourcebook, Ursula J. Fanning notes that “Serao never plots or envisages an actual revision of the patriarchal social structures that oppress her characters, but her very dissent from, and criticism of, the traditional restrictions she represents in her writing may well be indicative of a repressed desire for a different kind of social order” (1994, 390). This study proposes a reading of two of Serao’s novels, Cuore Infermo (1881) and Fantasia (1883), focusing on the portrayal of female illness as a vehicle for criticizing traditional restrictions on female behavior.

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Cuore Infermo presents two cases of female illness, one feigned and one authentic, as a way of exploring eroticism and repressed desire. Marcello Sangiorgio is torn between his emotionally distant wife Beatrice and the charms of his lover Lalla d’Aragona, an affluent widow suffering from tuberculosis, who is said to have caused the death of her husband, because, “delicato come una donna, è morto di sfinimento, di languore” [delicate like a woman, he died of exhaustion, of languish] (Serao 1988, 54). Lalla now threatens the health and fidelity of the town’s married men, whose wives are “senz’armi contro certe seduzioni” [without weapons against certain seductions] (Serao 1988, 55). Lalla’s physical illness, together with other characteristics associated with nervous disorders, constitutes the basis of her seduction for male characters in the novel: “Te lo ripeto, non si resta molto tempo presso la D’Aragona, senza amarla. È proprio lei la donna moderna, la donna appassionata, strana, forse superficiale, delicata, ammalata, nervosa, capricciosa, dalle apparenze varie che tutti seducono; la donna fatta per piacere alla inquieta e raffinata gioventù moderna” [I repeat, one does not stay much time around D’Aragona without loving her. She really is the modern woman, the passionate woman, strange, maybe superficial, delicate, sick, nervous, capricious, with changing appearances that seduce everyone; the woman made to please the restless and refined modern youth] (Serao 1988, 113). Serao’s description of Lalla as the “modern woman” who is “made to please” suggests that her personality has been purposefully crafted to accentuate certain characteristics. In such a way, Serao questions also the validity of Lalla’s physical illness as just another quality, along with capriciousness and nervousness, that she has chosen to adopt to increase her appeal. The essence of Lalla’s attraction is presented as closely related to her ability to create and project the desired image of herself, whether it be that of the suffering, ill woman or that of the temptress, as the following description of Lalla reveals: “Una donna seducente, caro Sangiorgio. Se vogliamo, è brutta. Ha un par d’occhi troppo neri, che si compiace d’ingrandire, tirando una linea col lapis nero sotto le palpebre: una vera follia. Una bocca dalle labbra così sottili e vivide, che sembra una cicatrice sanguinante. Ti dico, seducentissima” [A seductive woman, dear Sangiorgio. If we want, she is ugly. She has a pair of eyes that are too dark, which she likes to enlarge, drawing a black line under her eyelids: a true madness. A mouth with lips so thin and vivid that it looks like a bleeding scar. I tell you, very seductive] (Serao 1988, 59). In contrast to traditional notions of natural feminine beauty, Lalla’s physicality and her appeal derive from her ability to accentuate and dramatize, through the use of make-up, certain aspects of her face, ultimately granting them a damaged/wounded quality. Lalla also adopts the behavior of a sick person, appealing to Marcello to come visit her because she is ill and, upon his arrival, her illness takes center stage: “Ma l’ammalata giaceva sulla bassa dormeuse. Ella giaceva lungo-distesa, col capo perduto

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nei cuscini. . . . Chiusi gli occhi, le nari terree, la bocca semiaperta, le mani inerti e abbandonate lungo la persona: tutte le linee del volto diminuite, quasi corrose del male. —È morta—pensò Marcello” [The ill woman was lying on the daybed. She lay stretched out, with her head lost in the pillows. . . . With her eyes closed, her nostrils pale, her mouth partly open, her lifeless hands lying along her side: all the lines of her face gone, almost eaten away from the illness. —She’s dead—thought Marcello] (Serao 1988, 103). The above description reveals the eroticization of illness and its characteristics. Marcello is, in fact, drawn to Lalla’s condition of suffering, confessing his curiosity, “È qui che soffrite di più?” [Is this where you suffer the most?], and even his desire to share in her illness: “Vorrei avere io il vostro male . . . vorrei essere io ammalato” [I would like to have your illness . . . I would like to be the sick one] (Serao 1988, 105). By adopting a certain appearance, qualities, and behavior, Lalla succeeds in creating the desired image and in attracting Marcello. What is particularly interesting about the role of female illness in Cuore Infermo is that while performing physical illness and qualities associated with nervous disorders empowers Lalla, real illness brings death to Marcello’s wife Beatrice, who negates her love for him because she fears its effects on her cuore infermo [weak heart]. Beatrice, afraid to love, watches passively as Marcello takes Lalla as his lover, explaining the reasons to her father as such: Ho rivestita, da fanciulla, questa parvenza che tutti dicono indifferenza, e ne ho avuto tanto bisogno, che è divenuta il mio carattere. Tanto meglio. Chiamatelo egoismo! Non lo nego; ma io so che voi non potete chiamarlo così. Io non farò un passo, un gesto per abbandonare la mia salvaguardia; io non intendo sacrifizi, le abnegazioni. . . . io non amerò, io non sarò inquieta, ansiosa, gelosa, io non soffocherò i miei dolori ed i miei lamenti. (Serao 1988, 115) [I adopted, as a young girl, this appearance that everyone calls indifference, and I needed it so much, that it became my character. All the better. Call it egoism! I won’t deny it; but I know that you cannot call it that. I will not make a move, a gesture to abandon my protection; I do not understand sacrifices, self-denials. . . . I will not love, I will not be restless, anxious, jealous, I will not suffocate my pains and complaints.]

Beatrice’s declaration reveals a conscious decision to reject precisely the kind of behavior exhibited by Lalla. At a certain point, however, Beatrice decides to no longer repress her love for Marcello, but the happiness of their love is tainted by the violent physical attacks that leave Beatrice weak, pale, and shaking. Sickness comes to characterize and stimulate Marcello and Beatrice’s love, as the following passage reveals:

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Quei cambiamenti bruschi, rapidissimi, senza causa, quella variabilità costante, di quelli sbalzi da un eccesso d’affetto ad un eccesso di freddezza, animavano, fustigavano il loro amore, gli davano il colpo di frusta per scuoterlo, il colpo di sprone per insanguinarlo e farlo galoppare, gli davano il pimento che brucia il palato, gli davano il sapore molle ed acre delle lacrime con cui è tanto delizioso il bacio. (Serao 1988, 253–54) [Those abrupt, quick changes, without reason, that constant variability, the shifts from excessive affection to excessive coldness, animated and thrashed their love, giving them the stimulus to shake it up, the impetus to make it bleed and gallop, the spice that burns the palate, the tender and sharp taste of tears which render the kiss so delicious.]

Once again, illness and its characteristics provide a source of attraction and incitement for the lovers’ relationship. After a few short months of happiness together with Marcello, however, Beatrice’s weak heart succumbs and she dies. Serao’s dualistic portrayal of female illness in Cuore Infermo, as both feigned and real and with the effects of either empowering or restricting, reveals the writer’s awareness of the limited options available for women of her time in expressing their sensuality. In La voce che è in lei, Giuliana Morandini suggests Cuore Infermo, with its “medicina delle passioni,” [medicine of passions] as “alternativa profonda anche se non sempre consapevole al modello positivista d’emarginazione della donna” [profound alternative, even if not always a conscious one, to the positivist model of female marginalization] (1980, 218). Through the characters of Beatrice and Lalla, Serao suggests that women are forced into the binary roles of repressed or overt sexuality, with no option for intermediary expressions of sexuality. In the novel Fantasia (1883), Serao again juxtaposes two female characters, Lucia and Caterina, childhood classmates and friends, as a way of contrasting female behavior and character models, particularly the hysterical, neurotic type against the passive, submissive type. Lucia’s beauty and extreme sensitivity are combined with a neurotic and hysterical nature, as opposed to Caterina’s rather plain physical appearance and calm personality, more than once described as completely lacking in fantasy and imagination. Whereas Lucia questions her existence as woman, recognizing its limitations, Caterina humbly accepts her role and future as wife, subjected to a husband’s authority. An avid reader of Leopardi and also the Bible, Lucia expresses a melancholic view of existence in general, which can be summed up in her reflection: “Siamo nati sol pel dolore” [We are born only for pain] (Serao 2010, 41). Recalling descriptions of Fosca’s feelings of difference because of her intellect, Lucia confesses to Caterina her impression that she thinks too much and that such a tendency is unhealthy. Early in the novel, Serao establishes the juxtaposition between these two female characters, associating

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Lucia with sentiments of dissatisfaction with her limited existence as woman in fin de siècle Italian society and Caterina with passive acceptance of that role. Serao presents Lucia’s hysteria as linked to her dissatisfaction, which leads her to use illness as a means of escaping society’s pressures and restrictions for women. Lucia’s hysteria, manifested through fainting spells, convulsions, and nervousness, also appears connected to her intense religious asceticism, as revealed in the following episode during a religious service at Lucia’s boarding school: “si udì la voce affogata di Lucia Altimare che balbettava: ‘Maria . . . Maria . . . Maria bella. [. . .]’ Sopra un gradino dell’altare, sul velluto rosso del tappeto, una forma bianca giaceva distesa, con le braccia aperte, il capo abbandonato: figura spettrale. Era Lucia Altimare, svenuta” [Lucia Altimare’s muffled voice was heard stammering: “Maria . . . Maria . . . beautiful Maria. . . .” On a step of the altar, on the red velvet of the carpet, a white form lay, with open arms, resting head: a ghostly figure. It was Lucia Altimare, fainted] (Serao 2010, 20, 21, 24). Lucia’s religious fervor involves rejecting material possessions and desires, including physical love, which she declares herself incapable of experiencing and appreciating. She agrees to marry a man afflicted by tuberculosis and whom she does not love to fulfill a self-sacrificing humanitarian mission (Serao 2010, 122). Lucia’s actions of denial and religious devotion, while reminiscent of that of idealized female characters of much nineteenth-century romantic literature, 7 reflects also behavior that is typical of the hysteric, such as frequent episodes of extreme weakness, fainting, mystical ecstasy, and convulsions, as illustrated by the following episode narrating Lucia’s exasperated nervous frenzy: “D’un tratto la mano di Lucia Altimare si contrasse nervosamente: ella si alzò ritta in piedi, come irrigidita, si cacciò le mani nei capelli, li strappò, poi gittò un grido lungo, straziante, orribile e via di corsa per il salone. [. . .] Lucia si dibatteva con moti serpentini: le dette dei pugni, la graffiò, la morsicò. Poi mise un urlo e cadde svenuta sull’asfalto [Suddenly Lucia Altimare’s hand contracted nervously: she stood straight up, stiff, stuck her hands in her hair, pulled it, then let out a long, horrible, agonizing scream, and ran away through the living room. [. . .] Lucia struggled and twisted: she punched, scratched, and bit. Then she screamed and passed out on the ground] (Serao 2010, 36–37). The above description seems almost copied from descriptions of Charcot’s hysterical patients at the Salpêtrière hospital in Paris or literary narrations of hysterical attacks. Undoubtedly, contrasting desires and fears deriving from the struggle between religious devotion and personal aspirations amplify Lucia’s troubled character, a contrast described as “[d]esiderio vago e indistinto del peccato: paura vaga del castigo: lotta misteriosa che avveniva nelle profondità dello spirito” [vague and indistinct desire of sin: vague fear of punishment: mysterious struggle in the depths of her spirit] (Serao 2010, 78). The passage confirms

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Lucia’s self-imposed denial of pleasure while also indicating the restraint that she must exert upon herself to avoid it. Despite her apparent religious convictions and friendship with Caterina, Lucia begins a relationship with Caterina’s husband Andrea, a man who, unlike Lucia’s own husband Alberto, epitomizes health and virility. Lucia seems, however, determined to contaminate Andrea with her neurosis, warning him: “Non risanerai mai più: io sarò la tua malattia, la tua febbre, il tuo malore inguaribile” [You will never heal again: I will be your disease, your fever, your incurable illness] (Serao 2010, 218). At Andrea’s objection that he would rather her be his health and strength, Lucia’s response demonstrates her control and his role of submission within their relationship: “‘Il fuoco è migliore della neve, il tormento è più squisito della gioia, il morbo è più poetico della salute’ disse Lucia con voce squillante, rizzandosi accanto a lui, l’occhio lampeggiante, dominandolo. Andrea abbassò il capo, soggiogato” [“Fire is better than snow, torment is more exquisite than joy, disease is more poetic than health” said Lucia with a shrill voice, standing up next to him, her eyes flashing, dominating him. Andrea lowered his head, subjugated] (Serao 2010, 218). Lucia’s answer also indicates, however, a conscious decision on her part to adopt a certain type of behavior, one that she has chosen for its dramatic effects and which privileges suffering and illness over health. In such a way Serao questions the validity of Lucia’s actions and symptoms, suggesting them as adopted by choice and feigned rather than the natural manifestation of an illness. The following account of one of Lucia’s hysterical attacks appears, in fact, directed at gaining and maintaining the attention of Andrea, as well as that of others: ella cadde per terra, in preda a una convulsione nervosa, come ne soffriva da fanciulla: si contorceva tutta, le braccia fendevano l’aria, la testa balzava sul pavimento. [. . .] Poi, la convulsione sembrava si calmasse, le membra si rilasciavano, il petto si sollevava in forti sospiri: apriva gli occhi, guardava la gente attorno, ma li richiudeva subito, come inorridita, dava in un altissimo grido, e ricadeva convulsa, dibattendosi, non sentendo né l’aceto, né l’acqua di cui le inondavano il viso, né gli odori, nulla. [. . .] Quando poi la chiamava Andrea, tutto il viso le si scomponeva, la convulsione aumentava di ferocia. (Serao 2010, 224) [she fell on the ground, stricken by a nervous convulsion, like the ones she suffered as a young girl: she twisted and turned, her arms struck the air, her head hit the floor. [. . .] Then, the convulsion seemed to subside, her limbs relaxed, her chest raised with deep breaths: she opened her eyes, looked around at the people, but immediately closed them again, as if she was horrified, she let out a very high scream, and fell back into convulsions, thrashing, not feeling the water that was flooding her face or smelling the vinegar or the odors, anything. [. . .] When Andrea called her, her whole face contorted, the convulsion grew stronger.]

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Lucia’s attempts to conquer Andrea are, in fact, in the end successful. Transformed from the strong and healthy man he once was, Andrea is a weakened man after falling in love with Lucia: “Il temperamento saldo di Andrea, dalla sorgenti ricche di vitalità, si era guastato, il sistema nervosa si era corrotto, i muscoli si erano ammalati di fiacchezza” [Andrea’s steady temperament, from sources rich with vitality, had been exhausted, his nervous system had been tainted, his muscles were sick from weakness] (Serao 2010, 229). However, more than contaging Andrea, Lucia has rendered him unable to feel satisfaction and completion without her. Andrea is another “vacillating” male character who succumbs to the “aggressive” female. In the end of the novel, Lucia and Andrea run off together to Paris to live out their love affair abroad while Alberto and Caterina are left behind as victims of Lucia’s betrayal: Alberto succumbs to his illness and dies while Caterina commits suicide. After Lucia’s betrayal, Caterina recognizes the inescapable attraction Lucia had exerted upon everyone around her as well as the destructive, almost carnivorous, vampire-like nature of her character: La personalità di Lucia invadeva la vita intorno: Lucia protagonista, Lucia sovrana. [. . .] Questa figura così grande e così sviluppata attirava a sé tutte le altre, le affascinava, le seduceva, se le pigliava, se le incorporava. [. . .] Era dunque una creatura mostruosa, uno spirito guasto dall’infanzia, un egoismo che si gonfiava, si gonfiava, e assumeva la faccia bella e crudele della fantasia.(Serao 2010, 266–68 [Lucia’s personality invaded all life around it: Lucia the protagonist, Lucia the supreme. [. . .] This figure who was so large and developed attracted all others to her, she fascinated them, seduced them, took hold of them, absorbed them. [. . .] She was therefore a monstrous creature, a spirit ruined from childhood, an egoism that got bigger and bigger and adopted the pretty and cruel face of fantasy.]

Serao suggests that Lucia has made a profession of extreme and erratic behavior and illness itself through the character’s proclaimed desire “di ammalarsi nel misticismo come Santa Teresa, di morire nella follìa della croce come santa Teresa” [to fall ill in mysticism like Saint Teresa, to die in the madness of the cross like Saint Teresa] (Serao 2010, 73–74). Lucia succeeds in manipulating and dominating all those around her, from her husband to her best friend and finally her lover. Furthermore, the following description of Lucia’s “little farmacy” reveals her fascination with various forms of illness and science’s cures for them, again suggesting Serao’s portrayal of the fictitious nature of Lucia’s condition: “Poi ripuliva le boccettine della tavoletta. Dentro vi stavano le medicine fantastiche che una scienza quasi romantica ha dato per rimedio alla nevrosi moderna” [Then she cleaned again the little bottles on the nightstand. Inside them were the fantastic medicines that an

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almost romantic science had given to cure modern neurosis] (Serao 2010, 76). As the novel’s title indicates, all about Lucia is symptomatic of a neurotic fantasy, even her medicines are “fantastiche.” 8 The above description of Lucia’s medicines reveals a certain skepticism regarding not only the validity of the medicines and cures themselves but also the “modern neurosis” they were created to treat. Lucia herself is conscious of living out a fantasy, just like that of a novel, comparing her and Andrea’s situation to that of Emma Bovary, hysterical protagonist par excellence. It is, however, Lucia, the character associated with neurosis and hysteria, who realizes her fantasy to live out her passionate adulterous love with Andrea, while the submissive and healthy Caterina, as well as both Alberto and Andrea, are presented as her victims. Serao empowers Lucia, who ultimately escapes societal restrictions regarding female behavior and societal pressures to fulfill the role of devoted and self-sacrificing wife. ROCCO DE ZERBI’S L’AVVELENATRICE In his novel L’avvelenatrice (1883), Neapolitan journalist and novelist De Zerbi also presents contrasting female character types: the neurotic and seductive lover Fuchsia as opposed to the faithful, robust, and ultimately boring wife Isenarda. 9 The theme of feigned female neurosis and hysteria is explored in the novel through the character of Fuchsia, described as “[m]ondana ed eterea, nervosa sempre, sempre ad altissima temperatura, sempre esaltata, in do diesis, acuta, trafiggente,—tale era Fuchsia: e questa era l’irresistibilità del fascino suo” [earthly and heavenly, always nervous, always at maximum temperature, always excited, in do diesis, acute, piercing,—this was Fuchsia: and this was the irresistibility of her fascination] (De Zerbi 1884, 22). Fuchsia’s neurotic nature is also linked to an unconventional lifestyle, both of which form the basis of her appeal for men, especially Isenarda’s husband Volfgango, as the following passage reveals: “Questa donna, che viveva libera, diffamata, esposta a tutti i pericoli, ch’era isterica, impressionabilissima, e che già conosceva la vita, volea rimanersi fuori del mondo. Ciò era strano. E lo tentava. Ed egli le frullava intorno ora affascinato, or curioso, ma non ancora innamorato” [This woman, that lived freely, discredited, exposed to all dangers, who was hysterical, very impressionable, and already knew life, wanted to remain outside the world. This was strange. And it tempted him. And he whirled around her, at times fascinated, at times curious, but not yet in love] (De Zerbi 1884, 131). Fuchsia is, in turn, attracted to Volfango by the idea of contaging him: “Poetica, era lusingata dall’idea di trasformare in natura sensitiva e nervosa un uomo di affari, calmo, placido, calcolatore” [Poetic, she was flattered by the idea of transforming a calm, peaceful, calculated businessman into a sensitive and ner-

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vous nature] (De Zerbi 1884, 154). Once Fuchsia and Volfango’s relationship begins, the theme of contagion is extended to the presentation of Fuchsia as a vampire-like figure, given her changing nature, sensuality and readiness to go to any length to obtain and even conquer the man she desires: Nessuna donna era più poetica; e nessuna era più carezzante, più voluttuosa, più ardente. Ella era obbediente come una bambina, studiosa di tutto ciò che potesse piacere al suo Volfango, attenta a pettinarsi e vestire e parlare e pensare e sentire come a lui supponeva che potesse piacere: ma era vampiro, egoista, deliziosamente spietata, quando lo stringeva fra le braccia. [. . .] Talvolta, nelle più belle e più calde espansioni di lei, un pensiero agghiacciava Volfango: Se ella recitasse una commedia! (De Zerbi 1884, 163–64) [No woman was more poetic; and no one was more affectionate, more sensual, more passionate. She was as obedient as a child, studious of all that could please her Volfango, careful to groom herself and dress and talk and think and feel how she supposed he would enjoy: but she was a blood-sucker, selfish, deliciously cruel, when she squeezed him in her arms. [. . .] At times, in the most beautiful and hottest of her affections, a thought terrorized Volfango: if she was playing a role!]

Like Tarchetti’s Fosca and Serao’s Lalla and Lucia, De Zerbi’s Fuchsia is another female character who feigns to manipulate and govern the man she desires. Furthermore, Volfango’s doubts regarding Fuchsia’s sincerity recall those of other male characters discussed previously. Like Fosca, Fuchsia’s illness and her unconventional behavior constitute her difference and it is thanks to this difference that she liberates herself from social restrictions. Interestingly, of the female characters in L’avvelenatrice, Fuchsia is the only one who obtains a sort of “happy ending,” for not only does she secure Volfango’s attention and succeed in taking him away from his wife but also, vampire-like, his wealth and well-being. 10 In contrast to Fuchsia, Isenarda belongs to a group of women defined by De Zerbi as “Sirene della società moderna” [Sirens of modern society] (1884, 76), identifiable by their being “fredde” [cold] and “fascinatrici” [fascinating] and by their ability to wound while remaining invulnerable. De Zerbi informs the reader, however, that there are different categories of these “sirens”: those, like Isenarda, who are lacking in “sentimento” [sentiment] and those who are lacking in “senso” [feeling] (1884, 73–74). Described as “false sirene” [false sirens] for their “sordità di cuore” [unreceptive hearts] (De Zerbi 1884, 77), women such as Isenarda pose the greatest threat to men for their inability to inspire and reciprocate love. Interestingly, however, De Zerbi informs the reader that these women make the best wives because they are immune to “dramma, e al romanzo, sorde alle parole e alle idee e ai sentimenti, non soggette ai capricci e ai deliqui” [drama, and novels, deaf to words and ideas and feelings, not subject to tantrums and swoonings] (1884,

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79). Like character contrasts noted before, such as that between Lucia and Caterina in Serao’s Fantasia, De Zerbi links the behavior of women such as Fuchsia to acting and reciting fictions, while Isenarda represents domesticity and calmness. The difference in roles is revealed also through the characters’ actions and physical appearance: whereas Fuchsia is represented as beautiful, sensual, hysterical, and constantly changing in her behavior, “Isenarda era grassotta, era di buona salute, non avea le convulsioni, non era torturata dalle privazioni” [Isenarda was fat, she was in good health, she did not have convulsions, she was not tortured by deprivation] (De Zerbi 1884, 153). The fates reserved for these characters recall those of other novels discussed previously in this chapter, for Isenarda, like Fantasia’s Caterina, receives no reward for fulfilling the traditional role of faithful wife: not only does she lose her husband, when he falls prey to Fuchsia’s seduction, but also her freedom, when she is framed for the death of another character in the novel. Through the contrasting lifestyles and fates reserved for Fuchsia and Isenarda, De Zerbi suggests the advantages for women in breaking away from traditional roles and modes of conduct and illness as a means for doing so. GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO’S TRIONFO DELLA MORTE AND IL FUOCO The theme of mental and physical illness for both women and men is recurrent in Gabriele D’Annunzio’s narrative work. In Decadent Genealogies: The Rhetoric of Sickness from Baudelaire to D’Annunzio, Barbara Spackman examines the role of sickness in D’Annunzio’s novels, identifying Baudelarian and Lombrosian forms as well as one Spackman defines “specifically D’Annunzian” (1989, 152). Regarding female illness and its seduction, Spackman notes that “the rhetoric of sickness as applied to the upper-class female body [. . .] constitutes the erotic discourse of the Romanzi della Rosa” (1989, 152). The eroticization of female illness is present in all three novels of the Romanzi della Rosa trilogy, from the consummation in Il piacere (1889) of Andrea Sperelli’s and Elena Muti’s affair in Elena’s sickbed, where she has been recovering from face neuralgia, to Giuliana’s almost constant state of convalescence in L’innocente (1892) as she recovers from what is described as a complex illness of the womb and ovaries, and finally the appeal exerted upon Giorgio Aurispa by Ippolita Sanzio’s “dèmone isterico” [hysterical demon] and “male sacro” [sacred evil] in Trionfo della morte (1894). I will examine the novels Trionfo della morte and Il fuoco (1900) 11 for D’Annunzio’s portrayal of women who feign illness with the goal of dominating the men in their lives. In these novels, D’Annunzio, like the authors examined above, bestows the female characters with control and power. Praz notes, in fact, the degree of power exerted by D’Annunzian

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female protagonists, referring to them as “[f]emmine isteriche, dalla volontà esasperata, nelle cui mani l’uomo diviene un sottomesso strumento” [hysterical women, with an exasperated will, in whose hands man becomes a submissive instrument] (1999, 243). In Trionfo della morte Ippolita Sanzio’s illness, defined in the novel as “malattia della matrice” [disease of the womb] (D’Annunzio 1995, Trionfo, 174), a form of epileptic-hysteria characterized by “contrazioni di spasimo” [contractions of spasms], “sincopi” [syncopes], “svenimenti” [faintings], and “convulsioni” [convulsions], manifested itself just weeks after her wedding to a man she did not love. Ippolita and Giorgio’s relationship is also marked by the symptoms of her condition 12: “Spesso in quei giorni ella aveva perduto i sensi, ella era caduta in qualcuna di quelle sincopi gelide che la facevano sembrare morta, o in qualcuna di quelle convulsioni raccolte i cui soli sintomi esterni erano il pallore livido, lo stridore dei denti, la contrattura delle dita, lo sparire dell’iride nel bianco sotto la palpebra” [In those days she would often lose her senses, she would collapse into one of those frozen syncopes that made her seem dead, or into one of those convulsions whose only external symptoms were the livid pallor, the grating of her teeth, the contracture of her fingers, the disappearance of the iris under her eyelids] (D’Annunzio 1995, Trionfo, 174–75). The link between female illness and seduction is explored in depth through Giorgio and Ippolita’s relationship and in particular the attraction her illness exerts upon him: “Egli la guardò. ‘È bellissima, oggi. È pallida. Mi piacerebbe sempre afflitta e sempre malata’” [He looked at her. “She is beautiful today. She is pale. I would like her to be always suffering and sick”] (D’Annunzio 1995, Trionfo, 16); and “la sofferenza la trasfigurava, metteva in lei una seduzione più profonda” [the suffering transfigured her, it created in her a more profound seduction] (D’Annunzio 1995, Trionfo, 255). Ippolita’s suffering increases Giorgio’s desire for her and at one point, after reading a medical text about nervous disorders, he even fantasizes about observing her suffering, revealing his fetish-like desire in a letter: Io ti vedo contorcerti, nell’accesso; io vedo i tuoi lineamenti scomporsi e illividirsi, i tuoi occhi volgersi disperatamente sotto le palpebre rosse di pianto. . . . Io vedo tutta la terribilità del male, come s’io fossi vicino. . . . Vorrei rimanere immobile, in silenzio, là nell’angolo, nell’ombra, a pensare, ad evocare la tua immagine, ad evocare il tuo male, a vederti. Provo non so quale attrazione irresistibile verso questa tortura volontaria.(D’Annunzio 1995, Trionfo, 58–59) [I see you contort yourself, during the attack; I see your features become agitated and livid, your eyes roll despairingly beneath your eyelids red from crying. . . . I see all the terribleness of your illness, as if I were near. . . . I would like to be motionless, in silence, there in the corner, in the shadows, to

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think, to evoke your image, to evoke your pain, to see you. I feel such irresistible attraction towards this voluntary torture.]

Spackman notes the eroticization of illness in this passage as well as the conflation of passion and feigning illness: “The voyeuristic emphasis in this passage suggests that her convulsions are a parody of her ecstasy in love” (1989, 190). Giorgio’s fascination with illness culminates in his imagining Ippolita’s death as the maximum expression of her beauty: “Io penso che morta ella raggiungerà la suprema espressione della sua bellezza. Morta!” [I think that dead she will reach the supreme expression of her beauty. Dead!] (D’Annunzio 1995, Trionfo, 168–69). Giorgio does not, however, remain infatuated forever with Ippolita and her illness. The novel portrays the evolution, in fact, of their love affair from Giorgio’s initial sexual attraction to Ippolita and her sickness to his ultimate rejection of her because of fear of infection and contamination. Ippolita’s physicality represents the source of Giorgio’s repudiation of her and their relationship: “Con una inconcepibile intensità egli oramai nella persona d’Ippolita vedeva soltanto l’immagine astratta del sesso, vedeva soltanto l’essere inferiore, privo d’ogni spiritualità, semplice strumento di piacere e di lasciva, strumento di ruina e di morte” [With an inconceivable intensity by this point he only saw in Ippolita’s body the abstract image of sex, he only saw the inferior being, lacking any spirituality, a simple instrument of pleasure and lust, instrument of ruin and death] (D’Annunzio 1995, Trionfo, 183–84). What was once intense sensual passion, Giorgio begins to view as empty, fruitless coupling, because of Ippolita’s sterility. Ippolita’s infertile yet passionate nature posits her as a threatening force for the novel’s male protagonist, his Nemica [Enemy], as Giorgio refers to her in the latter part of the novel. Giorgio feels oppressed by Ippolita’s nature and very existence: “Finché vivrà, finché potrà esercitare sopra di me il suo impero, ella m’impedirà di porre il piede su la soglia che scorgo” [As long as she lives, as long as she exercises her control over me, she will prevent me from placing my foot upon the threshold that I see] (D’Annunzio 1995, Trionfo, 214). Paolo Valesio notes that such an evolution was typical for the love stories presented in D’Annunzio’s novels: “The symbolic action of erotic relationships in D’Annunzio’s novels follows, generally, a basic double movement: first a movement of triumphant assertion (conquest, enjoyment), soon followed by dissatisfaction, repentance, and a general flight away from the flesh and its ‘pleasures’” (qtd. in Spackman 1989, 154). In Trionfo however, the development from infatuation to dissatisfaction is taken to an extreme and involves also a shift, with respect to the other novels of the Romanzi della Rosa trilogy, in the portrayal of the female character: from lover to Nemica. Giorgio does not merely lose interest in Ippolita and their love story—he

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comes to focus his negativity almost entirely on her, viewing her as potentially responsible for his downfall. D’Annunzio explores the theme of female manipulation through Giorgio’s reflections on the changing nature of Ippolita’s sensuality, which he posits as directly related to her illness as well as to her femininity: “La sua sensualità è variabile, poiché ella è isterica; e il suo isterismo ha raggiunto, in altri tempi, il sommo dell’acuzie. Un organismo infermo come il suo passa, nel corso d’un sol giorno, per una gran quantità di stati fisici tra loro discordi e talvolta anche interamente opposti. [. . .] Quanto dunque ne’ suoi segni v’è di sincerità fisica e quanto di esagerazione appassionata?” [Her sensuality is variable, since she is hysterical; and her hysteria reached, in other times, the height of acuteness. A sick organism like hers passes, during one day, through a great deal of physical states that are at odds with each other and sometimes even entirely opposite. [. . .] Therefore, how much in her movements is physical sincerity and how much is passionate exaggeration?] (D’Annunzio 1995, Trionfo, 170). Giorgio’s questioning of Ippolita’s apparent submission to his desire becomes his conviction that in reality it is she who manipulates him, appearing to submit to him while exerting her control over him: “A poco a poco, infatti, ella mi ha effeminato. Ella si compiace d’impormi la sua opera voluttuosa. È come una rivincita ch’ella prende su la sua inesperienza dei primi mesi” [Little by little, in fact, she emasculated me. It pleases her to impose on me her sensuous behavior. It is like a revenge that she takes for her inexperience during our early months together] (D’Annunzio 1995, Trionfo, 171). Giorgio also begins to doubt the true nature of Ippolita’s illness, confused by the contradictions of the conflicting aspects of her nature and behavior, which combine sensuality with suffering and strength with illness: “Come mai poteva ella essere, nel tempo medesimo, così inferma e così valida? Come mai poteva ella conciliare nella sua sostanza tante contrarietà e assumere tanti diversi aspetti in un giorno, in un’ora sola?” [How could she be, at the same time, so sickly and so strong? How was she able to combine in her being so much opposition and acquire so many different aspects in one day, in one hour alone?] (D’Annunzio 1995, Trionfo, 278). Giorgio’s questioning of Ippolita’s nature as combining incompatible traits and characteristics lends strength to the interpretation of her behavior as contrived and invented with the intention of deceiving and controlling Giorgio. In Trionfo della morte, D’Annunzio’s portrayal of femininity, though negative in its binary representation of women as either sensual or threatening beings, is nonetheless one that grants a significant amount of power to the female figure. In fact, there are various ways in which D’Annunzio grants Ippolita control and power in her relationship with Giorgio. Giorgio’s initial obsession with obtaining Ippolita, an objective that reveals the unbalanced relationship of power between these two characters, posits Giorgio in the

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weaker position of he who must possess the other to feel complete. Giorgio’s remarks to Ippolita at the start of their relationship reveal his dependency upon her: “Puoi tu provarmi che ora, in questo attimo, sei tutta mia? Che cosa posseggo io di te? [. . .] Io non posseggo quel ch’io vorrei possedere. [. . .] Tu mi sfuggi, ti allontani, diventi inaccessibile. Io rimango solo, in una solitudine spaventevole” [Can you prove to me now, in this moment, that you are all mine? What do I possess of you? [. . .] I do not possess what I would like to possess. [. . .] You escape me, you flee, you become inaccessible. I am alone, in a frightening solitude] (D’Annunzio 1995, Trionfo, 14–15). Confirming how illness grants autonomy to the female protagonist of this novel, Spackman notes that it is Ippolita’s disease that obstructs Giorgio’s desire to possess her entirely: “Ippolita’s illnesses come to represent the impossibility of possession and priority in erotic matters. Ippolita is afflicted with both ‘il dèmone isterico’ and ‘il male sacro,’ diseases that appear as the continuing presence of the past in her body and which figure her prior possession by others” (1989, 184–85). Through the appeal Ippolita exerts on Giorgio, his obsessive desire to possess her, Ippolita’s manipulation of her desire and subsequent manipulation of Giorgio, the combining of passion and performing illness and the threat represented by her sexuality all constitute ways in which D’Annunzio posits Ippolita with autonomy and power in her relationship with Giorgio. Even Ippolita’s sterility represents a dimension in which this female character, subtracted from fulfilling the prescribed role of mother, can find a source of independence and power. It is interesting to note that Giorgio is also associated with notions of deficiency and malaise. Not only is he obsessed with thoughts of death and negativity, in what appears to be an almost inherited condition that will culminate in his suicide, but he is also oppressed by an overabundance of self-reflective tendencies, as the following description reveals: “Il suo cervello, ingombrato da un ammasso di osservazioni psicologiche personali e apprese da altri analisti, spesso confondeva e scomponeva tutto, fuori e dentro” [His brain, laden with a mass of psychological observations that were personal and also acquired from other analysts, often confused and disrupted everything, both inside and out] (D’Annunzio 1995, Trionfo, 12). Giorgio fulfills the image of the “inquieta e raffinata gioventù moderna” [restless and refined modern youth] and that of the vacillating man noted earlier by Serao and Praz, as Maria Giulia Balducci further confirms when she notes that “Giorgio è appunto l’emblema di questa condizione negativa dell’uomo moderno, segnato dall’incapacità di aderire vitalmente all’esistenza e dall’eccesso di analisi che è la causa della mancata adesione” [Giorgio is precisely the emblem of this negative condition of modern man, marked by the inability to vitally adhere to existence and by the excess of analysis which is the cause of his non-adherence] (1995, xxii). It is possible to observe how the weakening of

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the male figure complements the empowerment of the female figure in Trionfo della morte. Foscarina’s character in Il fuoco is that of another woman marked by sensuality as well as illness, explored through the neurosis and hysteria that are brought on by her suspicions that her lover Stelio, much younger than her, has taken another lover. The fear of losing Stelio leads Foscarina to experience frequent outbursts and hysterical attacks, in which she appears overcome by a “volontà micidiale” [deadly will] (D’Annunzio 1995, Il fuoco, 106), as illustrated in the following attack narrated through its effect upon Stelio: “Mai quell’uomo dimenticherà il mutamento di quegli occhi. Erano sbarrati, senza sguardo, d’una immobilità mortale nei sussulti implacabili, quasi fossero privi di palpebre, . . . la donna tentava di domare il suo spasimo costringendo le mascelle con ambedue le mani. Ma di tratto in tratto il maligno riso sfuggendo strideva nel silenzio torpido” [Never will that man forget the alteration of those eyes. They were wide open, with a blank stare, of a deadly immobility in their relentless darting, as if they did not have eyelids, . . . the woman tried to tame her spasm by holding her jaw with both hands. But suddenly the evil laugh escaped breaking the torpid silence] (D’Annunzio 1995, Il fuoco, 182–83). Foscarina’s hysterical attacks produce reactions of fear (“Era irriconoscibile, trasfigurata dalla violenza in una creatura minacciosa e pericolosa” [She was unrecognizable, transfigured by the violence into a threatening and dangerous creature] (D’Annunzio 1995, Il fuoco, 107)), but also the much-desired attention from Stelio, who tenderly cares for Foscarina after she recovers from them. As in Trionfo della morte, Foscarina’s illness is also part of her seduction, as Stelio’s thoughts reveal: “Ah, io ti possederò come in un’orgia vasta; io ti scrollerò come un fascio di tirsi; io scoterò nella tua carne esperta tutte le cose divine e mostruose che t’aggravano” [Ah, I will possess you as in a great rampage; I will shake you like a bundle of thyrsus; I will strike all the divine and monstrous things that burden your flesh] (D’Annunzio 1995, Il fuoco, 70). Stelio is drawn to the mystery and tortured quality of Foscarina’s nature, described as a mixture of divine and monstrous. Illness adds an aspect of intrigue to her character, but it also allows her to exert her control over Stelio. It is interesting to note that, Foscarina, like Ippolita, is sterile. Foscarina’s sterility frees her from the limitations that such a role brings for women, restricting them to the domestic sphere. The reader is led, however, to question the validity of Foscarina’s hysterical outbursts due to the emphasis placed in the novel on her role and qualities as actress, which provide her with “mille maschere” [a thousand masks] and “mille anime” [a thousand souls] (D’Annunzio 1995, Il fuoco, 107). For Foscarina, there appears to be no difference between acting a role in art or in life and her face is described, in fact, as a continual mask. Referred to in the novel as “divina” [divine] and “la Tragica” [the Tragic one], Foscarina pos-

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sesses a unique gift for acting, which represents her genius, posited in the novel against Stelio’s male genius, constituted by his poetic ability. Although Foscarina’s talent, that of being able to portray “mille volte,” recalls positivist conceptions of femininity as mutable and superficial, it represents a source of empowerment for the female character of this novel, granting her an almost superhuman quality: “Allora ella cominciò a sentire come la sua stessa vita derivasse nell’opera che tutto assorbiva, come a stilla a stilla la sua stessa anima entrasse nella persona del dramma, e i suoi aspetti, le sue attitudini, i suoi gesti, i suoi accenti concorressero a formare la figura dell’eroina ‘vivente di là dalla vita’” [Then she began to feel how her own life came from the work which absorbed everything, as little by little even her soul took on the person of the play, and her characteristics, habits, her gestures, her accents worked together to form the figure of the heroine “living beyond life”] (D’Annunzio 1995, Il fuoco, 185). In the novel’s conclusion, in fact, Foscarina, referred to as the nomadic woman, reveals her decision to leave Italy for distant locations when she replies to Stelio’s enquiry regarding where she is going: “Lontano. Traverso l’Atlantico” [Far. Across the Atlantic] and later declaring: “Vado a lavorare” [I am going to work] (D’Annunzio 1995, Il fuoco, 212). Foscarina is not tied down to traditional roles for women, such as wife and mother, given that her sterility and her histrionic nature allow her a freedom unknown for most women of the time. Foscarina, like the other female characters discussed in this chapter, belongs to a category of women who do not succumb to society’s pressures and limitations but choose, using illness as a chosen form of expression, to measure themselves with men, even going so far as to provoke and submit them. NOTES 1. Tarchetti did not complete the novel due to his premature death at the age of twenty-nine from tuberculosis. The climatic penultimate chapter, in which Giorgio and Fosca consummate their love, was completed after Tarchetti’s death by his friend Salvatore Farina. The novel was based on Tarchetti’s real-life experience in 1865 with his superior officer’s cousin, Angiolina, a woman afflicted by hysteria, deformed by the disease and desperately in love with him. The novel’s Giorgio is generally considered Tarchetti’s alter ego. 2. The doctor in Fosca is a central character in the novel, encouraging and facilitating Fosca and Giorgio’s relationship from start to finish. He bears many of the traits that characterize this type of figure in novels of the period: the calm, rational, and authoritative man of science who is devoted to scientific study and analysis as a tool for understanding human behavior. 3. The description matches common perceptions of the sick person, often described in medical texts of the period as lean, with a slender build, emaciated appearance, thick dark hair and pale, sallow countenance (Stanley Jackson, Melancholia and Depression [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986], 203). 4. In relation to Fosca and its representation of female illness, it is interesting to consider Tarchetti’s short story Lorenzo Alviati (1869), which also features the portrayal of a diseased female body and the attraction of illness and death. Lorenzo finds true love, which he describes as “una malattia della mia anima” [a disease of my soul] (Tarchetti 1992, 28), in Adalgisa, who

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is dying of tuberculosis. Her illness only increases his attraction for her: “Essa era anzi più bella. Che ti dirò delle contraddizioni inesplicabili della mia natura? . . . Io me ne innamorai in quei giorni; e quanto più ella si andava approssimando al suo fine, quanto più io acquistava la certezza del suo abbandono, tanto più si rafforzava in me questo affetto. Come raccontarti tutte le lotte del mio cuore? Descriverti, enumerarti le mie sensazioni? In poco tempo il mio amore raggiunse tutta la sua pienezza, assunse tutta la forza d’una passione indomabile. Sola, mia, soffrente, purificata dalla morte—così e non altrimenti io poteva amare una donna!” [She was instead more beautiful. What can I tell you about the inexplicable contradictions of my nature? . . . I fell in love during those days; and the closer she got to her end, the more I obtained the certainty of losing her, only served to increase my affection. How can I tell you all the struggles in my heart? Describe, count my feelings? In a short amount of time my love reached its fullness, took on all the force of an uncontrollable passion. Alone, mine, suffering, purified by death—only this way could I love a woman!] (Tarchetti 1992, 32).The female body seduces not because of its sensuality but rather because of its resemblance to death: the beloved’s body is referred to as a “cadavere” [corpse] along with references to the paleness of her face, the emptiness of her eyes and the whiteness of her hands (Tarchetti 1992, 35). After Adalgisa’s death, Lorenzo’s love grows even stronger, becoming “una passione che mi divorava la vita, senza che potessi spegnerla, che mi dominava senza che potessi combatterla” [a passion that devoured my life, without my being able to extinguish it, that dominated me without my being able to fight it] (Tarchetti 1992, 33). Lorenzo describes the development of his feelings for her in one line: “L’aveva dimenticata viva, l’aveva amata morente, l’adorava già morta” [I had forgotten her alive, I had loved her dying, I loved her once dead] (Tarchetti 1992, 33). Adalgisa prefigures the female protagonist of Tarchetti’s novel Fosca, whose skeleton-like appearance both repulses and fascinates Giorgio. 5. It is interesting to note that Tarchetti had already explored the topic of male hysteria in the novel Una nobile follia (1866), where he describes the negative effects of bourgeois society and its obligatory military service on the character of Vincenzo D. This character’s sensitive nature, which renders him unable to adapt to society’s expectations, is the source of his hysteria. Tarchetti accuses, also in this novel, society of being the cause of the protagonist’s illness by showing how Vincenzo’s experience as soldier, forced to kill his fellow man, produces his hysterical symptoms and brings him ultimately to commit suicide. Vincenzo’s hysteria manifests itself in his obsession with never again causing the death of another living creature: “tremava per uccidere un insetto, che si arrestava davanti alla gabbia di un passero colla stessa trepidazione di cuore con cui si sarebbe fermato dinanzi alla Bastiglia” [he shook when killing an insect, he stopped in front of a sparrow’s cage with the same anxiety with which he would have stopped in front of the Bastille] (Tarchetti 1971, 66). Hysteria represents, also in this novel, a rebellion against society and the “tirannia crudele delle loro abitudini” [cruel tyranny of their customs] (Tarchetti 1971, 66). 6. In the chapter “Male Hysteria” of her study The Female Malady, Elaine Showalter discusses the epidemic of mental breakdown among men returning from combat after World War I, commonly referred to by the term “shell shock.” Showalter notes that the “efficacy of the term ‘shell shock’ lay in its power to provide a masculine-sounding substitute for the effeminate associations of ‘hysteria’ and to disguise the troubling parallels between male war neurosis and the female nervous disorders epidemic before the war” (1985, 172). Showalter affirms the importance of this epidemic in providing “the first and, so far, the last time in the twentieth century that men and the wrongs of men occupied a central position in the history of madness” (1985, 194). 7. The most obvious comparison is that with Lucia from Manzoni’s I promessi sposi. 8. Chloral was commonly prescribed at the time for treatment of nervous pathologies. Medicine had means of curing nervous conditions, which were judged to be between a state of normalcy and madness. Many doctors preferred to observe the patient’s condition, as testified also in the doctor’s role in much narrative of the period. 9. Rocco De Zerbi (1843–1893), Neopolitan journalist, novelist, and parliamentarian, founded in 1868 the newspaper Il Piccolo. Giornale di Napoli. He was also author of the novels Il mio romanzo. Confessioni e documenti (1883) and L’avvelenatrice (1884). In this context it is interesting note, as testimony of this author’s attempt to take position against prevailing

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literary and cultural trends, his attack on the poetry of Giosuè Carducci, at that time widely recognized as one of Italy’s leading poets, in two articles published on Il Piccolo in 1878 and 1879, in which Carducci is referred to as a “Marte invecchiato,” [old Mars] whose verses seem “mori vestiti da inglesi, che si annunziano come parigini” [Moors dressed as English, that present themselves as Parisians]. 10. At the end of the novel, Volfango’s riches are consumed by Fuchsia’s lavish lifestyle and he contemplates suicide to avoid the shame of bankruptcy. 11. The novel Il fuoco belongs to the Romanzi del melograno trilogy but was the only novel completed in this trilogy. 12. The basis for Giorgio and Ippolita’s relationship is autobiographical in nature and can be traced in part to D’Annunzio’s relationship with Barbara Leoni in the years during which he writes Trionfo, 1889 to 1894. The notes to the edition of Trionfo della morte, edited by Maria Giulia Balducci emphasize the parallels between references in the novel and the epistolary exchange between D’Annunzio and Leoni. Balducci notes that whole sections of some letters were included directly in the novel, as D’Annunzio confirms, in reference to the writing of the novel, in a letter to Leoni dated September 25, 1889: “ho dovuto adoperare oggi alcuni frammenti delle mie lettere” [today I had to use some fragments of my letters] (1995, xii).

Chapter Four

Tigre reale and Malombra The Diva and Cinematic Adaptations of Female Illness

This chapter will examine the difference in the role of sickness between the novels Tigre reale and Malombra, where illness serves as the consequence and castigation for female transgressive behavior, and the cinematic adaptations Tigre reale (1916) and Malombra (1917), featuring respectively Pina Menichelli and Lyda Borelli, where illness performs exactly the opposite function: that of liberating the female characters from the “guilt” of their behavior. These films explore and accentuate the diva’s appeal on screen through the exaltation of her seduction also through illness. In the cinematic context, then, female illness serves a dual function: that of bringing attention to the figure of the diva and that of freeing her from the negative connotations surrounding the social upheaval she represents and brings about. The role of illness in these two “diva films”—a genre defined by Cristina Jandelli as “interamente costruito sulla centralità dell’interprete femminile” [entirely constructed around the centrality of the female performer] (2007 39)—consolidates the cinematic image of the diva by exploring her onscreen appeal while also strengthening the centrality of her role. In her landmark essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Laura Mulvey discusses the roles traditionally assigned to male and female figures within mainstream cinema: In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female figure which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness. [. . .] According to the 93

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Chapter 4 principles of the ruling ideology and the psychical structures that back it up, the male figure cannot bear the burden of sexual objectification. Man is reluctant to gaze at his exhibitionist like. Hence the split between spectacle and narrative supports the man’s role as the active one of advancing the story, making things happen. The man controls the film phantasy and also emerges as the representative of power in a further sense: as the bearer of the look of the spectator. (1989, 18–20)

It is possible, however, to observe the divergence from these traditional roles in diva films. In placing the female protagonist, her illness, and her point of view at the center of attention, diva films posit the female character as the active one in advancing the story. In making the film fantasy female rather than male, diva films provide an early example in Italian film history of the female gaze by “structuring the film around a main controlling figure with whom the spectator can identify” (Mulvey 1989, 20). Through her sensual presence, however, the diva maintains also the erotic role reserved traditionally for women in film. In the diva films of the 1910s, therefore, the female character splits her role between passive and active, for she is both spectacle and narrative. Tigre reale and Malombra further enforce the role of the female character as representative of power by avoiding the association of the diva with notions of wrongdoing, accomplished through the sublimation of her responsibility and guilt into illness and suffering. In such a way, illness serves to preserve the diva’s role as action-maker while at the same time removing the consequences of her actions. The changes between the literary and the cinematic versions of these two texts can be attributed principally to the emergence and cultural importance of the figure of the diva in early Italian cinema and society of that time The origins of the diva in early Italian cinema can be traced to nineteenth-century artistic (literature, theater, and opera) and scientific models of feminity, but this figure also encapsulated future models of behavior for women of the time, becoming a prototype of female emancipation. Angela Dalle Vacche suggests, in fact, that the diva as a figure “grew out of the struggle for change in Italian culture” (2008, 3). Previous readings of the diva and illness in Italian cinema have often focused on disease as the appropriate consequence, in the eyes of bourgeois society, for the diva’s uninhibited exhibition of passion. The following passage from Salvador Dalì’s 1932 article “Abregé d’une histoire critique du cinéma,” reveals how divas were associated not only with overwhelming desire and passion but also with illness: Ricordo quelle donne dal passo vacillante e convulso, le loro mani di naufraghe dell’amore che andavano accarezzando le pareti lungo i corridoi, aggrappandosi alle tende e alle piante. [. . .] In quell’epoca critica e turbolenta le magnolie venivano letteralmente prese a morsi, strappate coi denti da queste

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donne il cui aspetto fragile e pretubercolare non escludeva tuttavia forme audacemente modellate da una gioventù precoce e febbricitante.(qtd. Brunetta 1993, 345–46). [I remember those women with their shaky and convulsive steps, the hands of those desperate for love that moved along caressing the walls along the corridors, grabbing onto curtains and plants. . . . In that critical and turbulent time the magnolias were literally bitten and torn by the teeth of these women whose delicate and on the verge of tuberculosis appearance did not exclude forms boldly modelled on a premature and feverish youth.]

Dalì’s observation reveals an understanding of women’s passion as an unruly, uncontrollable, and undesirable force that can only be channeled through disease. In Diva Dolorsa filmmaker Peter Delpeut precedes the short film, a collage constructed from excerpts of diva films from the years 1913 to 1920, with a brief explanation of the “dolorous diva” as the “sexually liberated woman” whose “unconditional passion had to be punished.” Delpeut suggests that “illness and sensuality were paradoxical partners,” along with other juxtaposing and “seemingly irreconcilable” factors such as beauty and grief and pleasure and pain, within the artistic movement of Black Romanticism, which produced the climate and appetite for such films. In Diva: Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema, Dalle Vacche notes instead various functions of illness in the diva films, from signaling “either a weakening of the self or a discarding of conventions on the face of unbearably painful circumstances” (2008, 206) to “denounc[ing] the husbands, companions, and fathers who manage to avoid any punishment despite their spying, blackmailing, pimping, gambling, and kidnapping” (2008, 202). I argue that the shift, with respect to the literary origins, in the function of illness brought about in the films Tigre reale and Malombra derives from the characteristics and demands of the medium of cinema itself. In these films illness is not a punishment for transgression, it is that which allows the diva to take center stage and act out her story. In such a way, these films adopt illness as a vehicle for expressing, cinematically, the physicality and seduction of the diva, while also drawing attention to the psychology of her character. In the case of the divas, acting served as a channel for the baring of the female psyche—the inner female life made visible through its language of body, face, and gesture. The woman punished for her transgressions is gone, and replacing her is the prototype of the modern, emancipated woman who dominates the screen and minds of the spectators, a woman who is, according to Jandelli, “una precisa indicazione di tempi e costumi che stanno cambiando, sintomo della ricerca da parte delle donne, di un nuovo ruolo sociale” [a

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clear indication of changing times and customs, revealing women’s search for a new social role] (2007, 38). THE DIVA: A FEMINIST MODEL? Dalle Vacche defines the diva in early Italian cinema as “a female star in a feature film that ran at least sixty minutes and included some close-ups for the heroine and a fairly static use of the camera” (2008, 1). Noting the importance of the female actor, for whom roles were created “per dar rilievo alla sua performance” [to give importance to her performance] (Jandelli 2007, 38), Jandelli describes the period of divismo in Italy as follows: “Una vasta e differenziata gamma di interpreti danno vita a un nuovo fenomeno spettacolare di brevissima durata che raggiunge il massimo splendore nel triennio bellico e non sopravvive alla fine del decennio, tramontando definitivamente con la crisi produttiva degli anni venti” [A wide and differentiated range of performers gives rise to a new short-lived phenomenon in show business that reaches its maximum splendor in the three-year war period and does not reach the end of the decade, fading definitively with the production crisis of the 1920s] (2007, 38). The period of the divas witnessed the stardom of internationally acclaimed actresses such as Lyda Borelli, Francesca Bertini, and Pina Menichelli, the most famous of the Italian divas, who starred in dramas whose “primary topic was the change from old to new models of behavior in the domestic sphere and between the sexes” (Dalle Vacche 2008, 2). 1 The diva films stood out for the “intense social consciousness they exhibited in denouncing the corruption of adult young males” and for portraying important topics such as “courtship, first love, seduction, pregnancy, virginity, marriage, adultery, abandonment, divorce, child custody, prostitution, public reputation, employment, relatives and financial power” (Dalle Vacche 2008, 2). In bringing attention to issues directly affecting women’s lives, issues which represented in most cases instances of oppression for women, these films promoted a protofeminist message to audiences of the period. Films such as Ma l’amor mio non muore! (1913), Assunta spina (1915), and Il fuoco (1915), to name just a few, were box office hits that brought national and international fame to the divas who starred in them. The leading cinematic production companies of the day ardently sought out contracts with the most famous of the divas, offering substantial economic rewards and artistic liberties to attract and keep stars such as Borelli, Menichelli, and others. In the 1930 article “Le cinéma en Italie” on the journal L’Art cinématographique, Emilio Ghione notes how the most famous of the divas used their status to exert their influence in a variety of ways regarding the production of their films:

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Les artistes de premier plan, comme Francesca Bertini, Hesperia, Pina Menichelli, conscientes de leur valeur commerciale, augmentent leurs prétentions. En faisant peser continuellement sur la tête des industriels la menace d’un arrêt plus ou moins long dans la production, elles réussissent à imposer leur volonté. On voit la vedette e discuter le scénario, donner des conseils au metteur en scène, se plaindre si elle apprend que le film d’une rivale a tenu l’affiche quinze jours, alors que le sien n’a pas dépassé le dixième. (1930, 45) [The top-level performers, such as Francesca Bertini, Hesperia, Pina Menichelli, aware of their commercial value, are always increasing their demands. They manage to impose their will by continually presenting cinematic industry leaders with the threat of suspending work on the film in progress. They discuss scenes, they give advice to the artistic directors, they complain if a rival’s film lasted fifteen days in theaters while theirs did not make it past the tenth day.]

The divas recognized their worth as professionals, exerting their influence within the working context of their films, and they demanded, in turn, that their status and input be acknowledged. Interviews and epistolary correspondences of Menichelli and Borelli provide testimony of how these women proposed, through their work, a new model of professionalism and self-worth for women of the time. Jandelli asserts that the divas represented a new model of femininity, that of a woman renowned for her beauty and admired by both male and female audiences, but also that of a female performer abundantly compensated for her artistic performances and a model to be imitated by the female public: “così si propongono al pubblico femminile come modello di un’emancipazione che investe soprattutto la sfera dei comportamenti privati, mentre gli uomini restano soggiogati dalla loro seduzione disinibita” [so they present themselves to the female audience as a model of emancipation directed primarily toward the sphere of private behavior, while men are subjugated by their uninhibited seduction] (2006, 21). It was not, in fact, only through the roles that they interpreted on the screen that divas were able to provide a new point of reference for Italian women. The divas became promoters of nontraditional, protofeminist behavior, offering examples of emancipated lifestyles in their own lives, not only through the exercising of their profession, which brought stardom and wealth, but also through the choices made in their personal lives. Menichelli, for example, left her husband, the Italian Libero Pica whom she married in 1908 in Argentina, to return to Italy with a young child while pregnant with another child. She was soon after “discovered” by Cines when she filled in for her sister in a secondary role with the theatrical company Gramatica. 2 Gian Piero Brunetta suggests the diva as a new model for women of the time, that of a woman “che impone il suo corpo come valore e intende decidere liberamente del suo desitno sentimentale e dell’intera sua vita” [who imposes her body as

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a value and intends to freely decide about her sentimental destiny and her entire life] (2009, 11). The diva offered Italian women stories through the women portrayed in their films, as well as real-life examples through the choices made in their personal lives, of liberated women. ACTING STYLES OF THE DIVAS Although often customized and personalized to the point of earning names unto themselves, such as borellismo, bertineggiare, and menichelleggiare, the acting styles of the divas in Italian cinema of the 1910s can be traced on many levels to the origins of this figure in opera and theater. 3 Marcia Landy notes that the “diva brings to cinema an operatic fascination with eroticism and violence” (2000, 267). Opera and early Italian cinema share, in fact, an emphasis on themes of fatality, sensuality, loss, and power as well as, artistically, the mute gesture identified with music, which approximates the “unspeakable” suffering and ecstasy with which the diva is identified. In her article “Ottocento Italian Dive Between the Woman’s Stage and Page,” Katharine Mitchell notes the centrality of the female role and privileging of female emotions in opera: “Italian tragic opera from the 1830s to the 1920s was about women—their emotional and romantic lives, their sufferings, their ideological dilemmas—performed by women—insofar as the heroine was the central character in the dramaturgy, and her name, typically, was the opera’s title—and directly spoke to female spectators’ emotional lives.” 4 In this context, it is interesting to note that of all female sentiments, opera especially privileged suffering and the suffering heroine became a staple of Italian tragic opera from Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma, first performed in 1831 at Milan’s La Scala, to Giacomo Puccini’s Turondot (1926). Recalling scenes from diva films such as Tigre reale, Malombra, and others, which feature the female protagonist alone on stage to act out moments of intense drama, Mitchell notes how “[i]n these ‘woman’s operas,’ without exception, the melodious, often syrupy music, composed to represent the Fallen Woman on stage—on which she is frequently left alone to lament—takes up the majority of musical time in the orchestral score.” Almost all of the most important Italian cinema divas of the period arrive, however, from the world of theater, bringing to the new art of cinema solidified theatrical techniques and practices, such as acting styles and the figure of the leading actor/actress. 5 Brunetta suggests that “il divismo cinematografico, nei suoi primi passi, non è altro che una variante o sottocodice di comportamento rispetto al teatro, ma ben presto scopre, grazie alla sua diversa diffusione, un potere assai differente e superiore di trasmissione, anche nel sociale, di modelli di comportamento” [the cinematic era of the divas, in its first phase, is nothing but a variation or subcode of behavior with respect to

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the theater, but it soon discovers, thanks to its different circulation, a very different and superior power of transmission, even in the social context, of models of behavior] (1993, 74). Fausto Montesanti notes the following with regard to Borelli, who debuted in cinema with the 1913 film Ma l’amor mio non muore!: “fu un’attrice colta e raffinata, le cui precedenti esperienze teatrali che andavano da Wilde e D’Annunzio, ella riuscì a esasperare sullo schermo fino all’inverosimile, creando una stilizzata figura femminile che non ha precedenti nella storia del cinema, ma che deriva anch’essa direttamente da una precisa tradizione letteraria, teatrale ed anche figurativa” [she was a refined and sophisticated actor, whose previous theatrical experiences ranged from Wilde to D’Annunzio, who managed on screen to entice the audience to unbelievable lengths, creating a stylized female figure that has no precedent in film history, but that also comes directly from a precise literary, theatrical and even figurative tradition] (1952, 61). The acting styles of the divas can be linked, in fact, as Montesanti suggests, to the influence of the study of the figurative arts in theater acting. In Theatre to Cinema, Ben Brewster and Lea Jacobs note the attention given in nineteenth-century acting manuals to classical statuary and pictorial arts: “the concern with postures, and the attempt to control how the actor looked while standing or moving on stage, became pronounced in the mid-eighteenth century and persisted until well into the early twentieth” (1997, 81). The study of poses typical of early Italian cinema is based on a technical conception of how the action of the gesture develops in the actor’s body, as evidenced by the following passage from the eighteenth-century acting manual Dissertatio de actione scenica cum figuris eandem explicantibus et observationibus quibusdam de arte comica: “In a harpsichord the keys are pressed first, before the plucked strings give out a sound. So it is in man. The first realisation of something may be in the imagination: this moves the passion, and the limbs, before reason works, and discloses the inward emotion in words. The actor therefore imitates this natural way, so that he anticipates the word by the gesture” (qtd. Brewster and Jacobs 1997, 86–87). The mechanical design of the body was understood to produce movements in response to the “applied force” of the emotions. The metaphorical force of emotions increased the expressive abilities of the actor who practiced the pictorial style. In fact, as Brewster and Jacobs further note, “the passions were thought to find natural expression in gesture, in so far as the actor could mobilize these gestures, either through literally re-experiencing the emotions himself, or simply through assuming their outward manifestations” (1997, 87). It is interesting to note that the prevalence of such a technique in theater acting is referenced even in D’Annunzio’s novel Il fuoco when Foscarina, acclaimed actress in the novel and stand-in for real-life acclaimed actress Eleonora Duse with whom D’Annunzio was involved romantically, describes the study of statues as part of her personal acting style:

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Chapter 4 Le statue erano le mie mete. Andavo dall’una all’altra, e mi fermavo come se le visitassi. Alcune mi sembravano bellissime, e io mi provavo a imitare i loro gesti. [. . .] La sera, sul palco, recitando, mi ricordavo di qualcuna e avevo un sentimento così profondo della sua lontananza e della sua solitudine nella campagna tranquilla sotto le stelle, che mi pareva di non poter più parlare. [. . .] Certe volte, quando dovevo aspettare che finisse la gran tirata dell’interlocutore, prendevo l’attitudine di qualcuna che m’era più familiare e rimanevo immobile come se fossi anch’io di pietra. Incominciavo già a scolpirmi. (1995 Il fuoco, 173) [The statues were my goals. I went from one to another, and I stopped as if I were visiting them. Some seemed beautiful to me, and I tried to imitate their gestures. [. . .] In the evening, on the stage, reciting, I remembered some of them and I had such a deep feeling of its remoteness and loneliness in the quiet countryside under the stars, that it seemed I could no longer speak. [. . .] Sometimes, when I had to wait for another performer to finish their lines, I took the attitude of one of the statues that was more familiar to me and I remained immobile as if I were also of stone. I had already started to sculpt myself.]

Foscarina’s words confirm the link between pose as a means of evoking and producing emotion to the extent that the actress herself takes on the form of sculpture. Brewster and Jacobs suggest that an “understanding of these techniques is a precondition for the evolution of film acting in the 1910s” (1997, 81); however, it is important to consider that in cinema the poses and gestures of the actor were influenced also by factors that did not exist in theater, such as the distance of the actor from the camera or the film speed. The pictorial style of acting was adapted to the requirements of the camera, which often resulted in a more emphatic acting style than that used in the theater. The divas’ acting styles often featured, in fact, the prolongation of a pose for moments of great drama or passion. The importance of a scene could be emphasized and prolonged through gestures and poses and especially through their repetition. Jandelli notes how in diva films “i momenti più suggestivi sono ottenuti da un climax passionale, da scene madri che prendono la forma di lunghe ‘arie’ costituite dall’esibizione silenziosa [. . .] del corpo sublime e ‘mistico’ dell’attrice” [the most suggestive moments are obtained by a passionate climax, by climatic scenes that take the form of long “arias” constructed on the silent performance [. . .] of the sublime and “mystical” body of the actress] (2007, 43). Such acting styles favored the figure of the diva, who often found herself alone in dramatic scenes to express her emotions.

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SCIENTIFIC, CULTURAL, AND ARTISTIC MODELS FOR FEMALE PERFORMANCE Judith Butler defines performativity as “not a singular or deliberate ‘act,’ but, rather, as the reiterative and citational practice by which discourse produces the effects that it names” (2014, 2). Kristen Pullen notes that such a notion of performativity “depends on a collective knowledge of gendered behavior,” so that when actresses perform a version of femininity for their audiences, “they are citing established and historicized behaviors” (2005, 8). Pullen argues that through the performance of hyperfemininity as it was understood at the time—heavy sighing, fainting, physical, or mental illness—the diva succeeded in “illuminating how women are able to manipulate men with their bodies, and pointing to the constructed nature of gender categories” (2005, 19). From such a perspective, the acting styles of the divas draw upon a collective understanding of femininity while at the same time dissenting from it by bringing attention to the stories behind such recitation. It is important to remember that female performers also faced contemporary characterizations of femininity, which came perhaps to be reflected in their acting styles. Scientific and philosophical discourse of the period portrayed women as naturally prone to histrionic behavior, suggesting the idea that all women were actresses by nature. In “Acting Women: The Performing Self and the Late Nineteenth Century,” Michael Robinson notes, for example, Friedrich Nietzsche’s portrayal of women as multiple, duplicitous, unstable, and constantly changing: “There are women who, however you may search them, prove to have no content but are purely masks. The man who associates with such almost spectral, necessarily unsatisfied beings is to be commiserated with, yet it is precisely they who are able to arouse the desire of the man most strongly: he seeks for her soul—and goes on seeking” (qtd. Robinson 1991, 9). In La donna delinquente, la prostituta e la donna normale, Lombroso and Ferrero proposed women’s natural tendency toward dissimulation and, by extension, toward reciting fictions and therefore acting: Di più esse hanno quasi, si potrebbe dire, una menzogna istintiva. Tutti avranno potuto osservare come le donne, prese anche alla impensata, meglio o peggio architettare una bugia; il loro primo movimento, anche se non sono in colpa, è quello di pararsi con una menzogna. Ed essa vi è così organica che non lo sanno e non possono mai essere interamente sincere; sono tutte un poco inconsciamente false. (1915, 97–98) [Women have something close to what might be called an instinct for lying. Caught at something unexpected, they start concocting a lie. . . . Their first move, even they are not guilty, is to dissimulate. This is so organic that they are unaware of it, and they are never able to be entirely sincere. Unconsciously, all are a little false.]

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Not only did women possess, according to many scientists and philosophers of the time, a natural tendency toward falseness and histrionic behavior, they were also naturally prone to hysteria: the link between female histrionics and hysteria had already been proven by Charcot’s study of female hysteria and his patients’ performances at the Salpêtriere in Paris in the 1870s. In their protean mutability, the actress and the hysteric were avatars of all women. In his studies of female hysteria, Freud explored the notion of the female hysteric that transforms her body into a kind of theater where she replays scenes from the past that she cannot otherwise express. In “Realism and Hysteria: Toward a Feminist Mimesis,” Elin Diamond notes that “[b]y the early to mid-nineteenth century, hysterical women (who were often considered degenerate, duplicitous actresses) became semiotically indistinguishable from actresses playing hysterical fallen women in melodrama” (1990–1991, 63). Acting manuals of the period also proposed for actresses, as an extension of their identity as women, an overlap between artistic and scientific notions of femininity. Nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century discussions on theatrical acting styles, in Italy as well as the rest of Europe, associated the art of acting with the ability to be “characterless.” As Robinson notes: “the performer is a kind of tabula rasa, someone who is at the very least characterized by a conspicuous lack of character, and who therefore becomes [. . .] the imitator of other people’s feelings while possessing none of their own” (1991, 3). Characterlessness embodies the ideals of selflessness, imitation, and passivity that were associated almost exclusively with women in nineteenth-century European society, constituting another reason for which women were considered particularly suited for acting. Passivity, furthermore, is explored in the same period as a central factor in the expression of hysteria in women, serving as a further link between female nature, illness, and acting. Just as the actor’s body is conveyed as a passive vehicle for the expression of emotions, the hysteric’s body serves as a vehicle for the expression of the disease’s symptoms. The similarity should be noted between Freud’s theory of the origin of the hysterical gesture as the expression of an uncontrollable repressed conflict and the theory, expressed in various nineteenth-century acting manuals, of the way the pose or gesture develops in the actor’s body. Both theories emphasize the influence of emotions as essential to the expression of feeling through gesture. The body of the hysteric and that of the actor responded mechanically to the influence of emotions. Notions of women’s submissive nature and their lack of originality and intelligence resurface in descriptions of actresses in various texts from the period. Works such as Le nostre attrici cinematografiche (1919) by Tito Alacci and Profili di attrici e di attori (1926) by Alessandro Varaldo suggest primarily passivity as an artistic model for actresses, urging them to portray the image of femininity that the film director desires. Alacci notes in Le nostre attrici cinematografiche that “la migliore di esse è colei che più pas-

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sivamente obbedisce al direttore di scena, dopo di essersi bene immedesimata nella persona del quadro” [the best of them is the she who passively obeys the stage director after having fully identified herself with the person of the story] (1919, 23). Varaldo notes in Profili di attrici e di attori that the actress has to adapt to the image “che vogliono gli occhi critici maschili” [that critical male eyes want] (1926, 53). Rendering the description of the passive actress more explicit, both Alacci and Varaldo utilize the simile of the cinema screen as a blank canvas or a painting. The director is the painter who creates images and shapes with the “colors” at his disposal. Alacci, comparing the actress to the colors on the painter’s palette, writes: “la figura, ossia il colore, deve essere bella, viva, inalterabile e capace di fondersi armonicamente cogli altri elementi del quadro” [the figure, or rather the color, must be beautiful, alive, unalterable, and able to blend harmoniously with the other elements of the painting] (1919, 14). The imagination of the director, the only true artist according to Alacci, gives life to the cinematic actress. Varaldo reveals the need for women to adapt to certain artistic models to advance professionally: “Passano i tempi, mutano i gusti, ma l’attrice bella rimane; forse adattandosi ai tempi ed ai gusti, ma rimane” [Time goes by, tastes change, but the beautiful actress remains; perhaps adapting herself to the times and tastes, but she remains] (1926, 52). Failing to separate the woman from the actress, Alacci states: “Non c’è donna a questo mondo, che sacrificherebbe uno solo degli attributi della sua femminilità per un trionfo intellettuale qualsiasi. Alla donna può interessare certamente di essere ammirata; ma a lei interessa assai più di essere amata. Perciò l’attrice preferirà sempre di essere bella che di essere grande” [There is no woman in this world who would sacrifice even one of the attributes of her femininity for any intellectual triumph. Women may certainly be interested in being admired; but they are much more interested in being loved. For this reason, the actress will always prefer to be beautiful rather than talented] (1919, 19). Alacci and Varaldo also reveal the role that illness plays in shaping cultural and artistic models for women of the time. Varaldo writes that Borelli, as a child, “non sapeva [. . .] che doveva discendere ogni sera nel futuro da un quadro di Aristide Sartòrio, 6 e non sapeva che per completare il ciclo estetico doveva un po’ ammalarsi, o far temere d’un male, perché l’aureola della grazia si completasse” [She did not know [. . .] that every future evening she would have to step out of a painting by Aristide Sartòrio, and she did not know that to complete the aesthetic cycle she would have to become a little ill or fake an illness, so that the halo of grace could be completed] (1926, 56). Just as Serao had done decades before him, Varaldo suggests illness as an obligatory element of a woman’s appeal, confirming how illness continued to be a cultural and artistic model for women, influencing in this period also standards of beauty and attraction for actresses.

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For an additional portrayal of the female performer of the period, it is interesting to consider D’Annunzio’s representation of the theatrical actress Foscarina in the novel Il fuoco. 7 Foscarina’s histrionic nature is presented in the novel as a source of suffering: “Ella soffriva di tutta sé stessa: dalla mutabilità che avevano i suoi propri lineamenti; della strana virtù mimetica che possedevano i muscoli della sua faccia, e di quell’arte involontaria che regolava la significazione dei suoi gesti” [She suffered because of herself: because of the mutability of her own features; because of the strange mimetic virtue that the muscles of her face possessed, and because of that involuntary art that governed the meaning of her gestures] (D’Annunzio 1995, Il fuoco, 24). The essence of her artistic ability as actress, described as an involuntary art, is intertwined with contemporary notions of women as false and lacking originality and genius. In the following passage Foscarina’s onstage acting overlaps with her offstage life, confusing the boundary between the two: Mi rimaneva negli orecchi la risonanza dei versi, come d’una voce che non fosse mia, e nell’anima una volontà estranea che non riescivo a cacciare, come una figura che contro la mia inerzia tentasse ancora di fare quei passi e quei gesti. . . . La simulazione della vita mi rimaneva nei muscoli della faccia, che certe sere non potevano quietarsi. . . . La maschera, il senso della maschera viva che nasceva già. (D’Annunzio 1995, Il fuoco, 171) [The sound of the lines stayed in my ears, like a voice that was not mine, and in my soul an alien will that I was not able to eliminate, like a figure that endeavored to do those steps and gestures against my inertia. . . . The simulation of life remained in my face muscles, which certain evenings could not be calmed. . . . The mask, the sense of the living mask that was already born.]

In Il fuoco we find the theme, expressed also in Alacci and Varaldo’s writings, of man’s genius creating woman’s artistic ability and the submission of women to male genius. As the film director does with the actress, Stelio the poet shapes Foscarina according to his wishes: “Ella era anche una volta quale egli voleva foggiarla. [. . .] D’attimo in attimo, parlando, movendosi, egli la faceva a sua somiglianza. [She was also once how he wanted her. . . Little by little, speaking, moving, he formed her like him.] (D’Annunzio 1995, Il fuoco, 135). The following lines from the novel confirm how Foscarina’s talent derives from an animalistic rather than artistic source, confirming contemporary as well as ancient associations of women with the physical realm while reserving intellectual capacity and genius for men: “Non toccava egli così in lei il più oscuro mistero dell’essere? non le faceva sentire così la profondità animale da cui erano scaturite quelle rivelazioni del suo genio tragico inattese che avevano scosso e inebriate la moltitudine come gli spettacoli del cielo e del mare, come le aurore, come le tempeste?” [Did he not touch in her the darkest mystery of being? Did he not make her feel the

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animal depths from which had sprung the revelations of her unexpected tragic genius that had shaken and inebriated the crowds like the sights of the sky and the sea, like the dawns, like the storms?] (D’Annunzio 1995, Il fuoco, 135). DIVA THE ARTIST AND BUSINESSWOMAN It is interesting to consider the perspective, as expressed in letters and interviews, of the divas Menichelli and Borelli on their work as film actresses. Although facing, like all women and especially as actresses, preconceptions of the female nature as naturally histrionic and inferior to that of men and presuppositions of the actress as sexually transgressive and morally degenerate, Menichelli and Borelli reveal the practical attitude and artistic engagement with which they approached their profession, further confirming these figures as models of independence for women of the time. In a 1916 interview with Alberto Sannia published on Film, Menichelli reflected on the relationship of reciprocal recognition and collaboration between diva and director, in this case Giovanni Pastrone, who directed the actress in Il fuoco and Tigre reale: Con lui ho imparato a lavorare così come lavoro oggi. Studiamo insieme le mie parti: egli le studia negli ambienti che mi debbono circondare, nelle luci che possono conferire risalto alle mie espressioni, nei giusti toni di cose e di colori e di persone sulle quali conviene far risaltare la mia azione; ed io studio il sentimento del mio personaggio, il sentimento ed il senso, il pensiero e l’esteriorità. In tal modo, io non solo rivivo in me stessa la finzione da rappresentare, ma la sento anche attorno a me. (Martinelli 2009, 42–43) [With him I learned how to work as I work today. We study my parts together: he studies them in the settings that surround me, in the lights that can emphasize my expressions, in the right tones of things and of colors and of people on whom it is better to highlight my acting; and I study the feeling of my character, feeling and meaning, thought and outward appearance. In this way, I not only live inside myself the fiction to be acted out, but I also feel it around me.]

Menichelli’s comments provide insight into the determination with which she approached her cinematic acting style, which she differentiates from her theatrical acting style and attributes to her collaboration with Pastrone. In another interview, in fact, Menichelli recognizes the differences between the cinematic genre with respect to the theater and the theatrical actor’s need to adapt to those differences when acting in cinema: “Essi [gli attori] portano, sulla scena muta, tutto l’artifizio che sulla scena parlata si regge esclusivamente sulla parola: e la deficienza può essere colmata da loro solo se essi comprendono il cinematografo. Ma se no, no. Si può essere ottimi artisti

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drammatici e pessimi artisti cinematografici” [They (the actors) bring, to the mute scene, all the artifice that in the spoken scene is based solely on the spoken word: and any shortcoming can be filled by them only if they understand cinema. But if not, no. It is possible to be great dramatic artists and terrible cinematic artists] (Martinelli 2009, 55). It is important to note that in her 1916 interview, Menichelli’s words confirm the centrality of the figure of the diva within the film: everything revolved around her character, from the lights to the objects, colors, and people that would best exalt her expressions and actions. While Menichelli’s words confirm the director’s role and importance in creating the external conditions necessary to best exalt the figure of the diva, the diva credited her capabilities as actress with bringing the character to life. In speaking of the character that she portrayed in the film Tigre reale, Menichelli described Natka as “una donna d’eccezione da rappresentare nella singolarità delle sue passioni e delle sue vicende intime” [an exceptional woman to be represented in the singularity of her passions and intimate affairs] (Martinelli 2009, 43), revealing her understanding of her role as actress as founded on her ability to bring out the inner drama of the character she portrayed. Interestingly, only a few years later in an interview with Carlo Zappia published in 1919 on Cronache dell’attualità cintematografica, Menichelli expressed her disapproval of the tendency in Italian cinema to privilege the figure of the diva over other actors and actresses, criticizing ironically the very tendency that contributed to her stardom: Disapprovo assolutamente. La trovo ingiusta e inutile. E, per essere coerente con me stessa, non permetto che essa si applichi nei lavori da me interpretati. Nei quali desidero essere contornata da ragazze carine: come pure, che tutte abbiano la loro parte di luce e che nessuno rimanga nell’ombra. Da una valorizzazione giusta ed adeguata di tutte le persone che prendono parte all’esecuzione di un film, non può venire, al film stesso, che giovamento. È il caso de Il padrone delle ferriere. 8 (Martinelli 2009, 56) [I absolutely disagree. I find it unfair and useless. And, to be true to myself, I do not allow it to happen in the films in which I perform. In which I wish to be surrounded by pretty girls: also, they all must have their share of light and no one should remain in the shadows. A film itself can only benefit from the proper and adequate appreciation of all people involved in the making of the film. This is the case with Il padrone delle ferriere.]

In this interview which dates three years after the previous one, during which time Menichelli starred in at least eight films and had evidently gained ample experience in the cinematic industry, the actress reveals a certain sensitivity and appreciation for the opportunities that cinema offered actresses and cinematic collaborators in general. While Menichelli expresses a certain solidar-

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ity with and respect for actresses of lesser fame and status, her words confirm a continued perception of the centrality of her role, surrounded by “pretty girls.” The actress was not afraid, however, to acknowledge her respect for other divas of her status, as when she responded to Zappia’s question as to whether there were to be found “grandi artiste cinematografiche” [great cinematic female artists] in Italy: Non lo credo. Ne sono convinta. Potrei qui invocare la testimonianza indiscutibile di mille bordereaux, ma mi contenterò di citarvi il fatto che non una, ma parecchie artiste nostre hanno avuto dall’America, ed anche da altri paesi, offerte vantaggiosissime. Se le hanno respinte, è segno che si trovano bene in Italia e che sentono di essere, qui, qualcuna e qualcosa. (Martinelli 2009, 55) [I do not think so. I am convinced of it. I could invoke the unquestionable testimony of a thousand payment slips, but suffice it to say that not just one, but many of our female artists have received very attractive offers from America and other countries too. If they have rejected them, it is a sign that they are doing well in Italy and feel that here they are someone and something.]

Rather than feeling threatened by the success of some of her colleagues, Menichelli took pride in the fact that cinema had become a way for women to feel as if they were “somebody,” confirming the emancipist potential offered by the role of actress. In an interview with Giovanni Innocente published in 1918 on In Penombra, Menichelli narrated how she came to enter the film industry, revealing both the artistic and practical motivations for her interest in a cinematic career: “Un giorno a Roma fui incuriosita e attratta dalla cinematografia che dalla capitale prendeva il suo pieno sviluppo e le confesso che ritenni maggiormente conforme al mio temperamento artistico più la posa che la recita; non solo, ma i guadagni del teatro drammatico di allora non bastavano più nemmeno alla mia sobrietà” [One day in Rome I was curious about and attracted to the cinematography industry that was developing in the capital and I confess that I felt that the pose more than recitation conformed more to my artistic temperament; not only, but the earnings of dramatic theater at that time were not enough anymore even for my sobriety] (Martinelli 2009, 50). Menichelli associated cinema acting with posing rather than recitation, given of course the absence of sound in cinema at that time, revealing the importance of the pictorial style of acting for early cinema. Menichelli’s acknowledgment of the economic reasons for her interest in a cinematic career and her open discussion of the financial stimulus it offered further confirms her as a role model for women of the time, searching for ways to free themselves from their dependence upon fathers, husbands and brothers. The epistolary exchange between Lyda Borelli and Cines producer Alberto Fassini contains important indications regarding the actress’s attitude to-

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ward her cinematic career. 9 The exchange contains eighteen letters exchanged between Borelli and Fassini from February to November 1917, a year marked, according to Marialuisa Grilli, by the greatest level of Borelli’s activity at Cines (1993, 52), but also three letters written to Fassini by the actress’s mother Cesira Banti and three letters addressed to Borelli by other figures active within cinematic and journalistic spheres. 10 In her relatively short cinematic career (1913–1918), Borelli made a total of fourteen films, eleven of which were with Cines, and the period 1917 to 1918 saw the production of the following seven films with Cines: Malombra, Rapsodia Satanica, La Storia dei Tredici, Carnevalesca, Per la Vittoria e per la Pace!, L’altro esercito, and Il Dramma di una Notte. Grilli notes regarding the content of the letters in general that they discuss problems arising during movie production, hypotheses of other film projects, new economic arrangements, and jokes about the relationship linking the two correspondents (1993, 52). Two early letters in the collection, written by Banti on her daughter’s behalf in 1915 and 1916, focus exclusively on the actress’s availability to work with Cines only when her theater company is on hiatus, indicating how, in this early phase of her cinematic career, Borelli’s involvement with the film industry came second to her theatrical career, a fact that should not surprise given that Borelli in those years was still principally a theater actress and one of the most famous in Italy. In “Lyda Borelli e la nascita del glamour,” Ivo Blom discusses Borelli’s immense success as a theater actress in the years leading up to her cinematic career: “Nel 1911, Lyda Borelli (1887–1959) fu all’apice del successo teatrale, recitando nei teatri più famosi in Italia come il Teatro Manzoni di Milano e il Teatro Valle di Roma, in spettacoli di Victorien Sardou, Henry Bataille, George Ohnet; in breve, tutto il repertorio che ben presto sarà il repertorio nel cinema delle dive” [In 1911, Lyda Borelli (1887–1959) was at the peak of theatrical success, acting in the most famous theaters in Italy, such as the Teatro Manzoni in Milan and the Teatro Valle in Rome, in performances by Victorien Sardou, Henry Bataille, George Ohnet; in short, the whole repertoire that soon would be the repertoire of the cinematic divas] (2010, 75). In a letter to Fassini, Cesira writes: “sapevate fino dall’inverno scorso che Lyda avrebbe avuto i soli due mesi di luglio e agosto tanto è vero che avevate detto di prendere un villino in campagna” [You have known since last winter that Lyda would have only the two months of July and August, in fact you had said you were going to get a little villa in the countryside] (Pantieri 1993, 56), revealing Cines’s obligation to come to Borelli and not vice versa. In the same letter Banti made explicit the subordinate relationship between Lyda’s theatrical and cinematic careers: “D’altronde se d’inverno il tempo è contrario, d’estate fa caldo mi dite per un’attrice non cinematografica che ha impegnato 10 mesi dell’anno quando deve lavorare?” [But if in winter the weather is bad and in summer it is hot, tell me when a noncinematic actress

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who is busy ten months of the year can work?] (Pantieri 1993, 56). Borelli’s prioritizing of her time around her theatrical engagements allows us to understand how cinema was, in those years, still a young art and therefore of dubious reward for a theater actress. As Banti’s remark regarding her daughter’s negotiations with her theater company for a new contract reveals: “Soprattutto insistono sul poco decoro che un’attrice arrivata possa fare del cinematografo” [They insist especially on the little respectability that an established actress faces in cinema] (Pantieri 1993, 55). Borelli’s letters to Fassini reveal the business-like manner with which she managed her affairs as actress and her involvement in multiple aspects of the cinematic production. In a letter dated March 1, 1917, the actress wrote with a direct and concise style, which she described as telegraphic, not hesitating to express her opinions on issues relating to a possible production of D’Annunzio’s novel Forse che sì, forse che no 11 that ranged from approval of screenwriter and costars to proposing her own idea for the film’s costumes. Borelli proposed, for example, a unique type of costume that would go beyond mere notions of contemporary fashion: A cinque o sei riprese nel libro D’Annunzio descrive le vesti d’Isabella e parla di quelle tuniche a pieghe che Mariano Fortuny fa a disegni colori e foggie (!) strane—ma veramente belle e artistiche tutte. [. . .] Non trovereste originale che tutti i vestiti di Isabella Inghirami fossero disegnati e fatti da lui in uno stile che non fosse la moda—ma qualche cosa di più personale, di più artistico, di più nuovo e che aiutasse con la linea il pubblico a comprendere e l’attrice a creare il tipo di donna voluta? Credo che una suggestione puramente ottica possa orientare il pubblico verso uno stato d’animo. (Pantieri 1993, 60) [Five or six times in the book, D’Annunzio describes Isabella’s clothes and talks about those tunics with folds that Mariano Fortuny does with designs colors and strange (!) styles—but all very beautiful and artistic. [. . .] Would you not find it original if all of Isabella Inghirami’s clothes were designed and made by him in a style that was not fashion—but something more personal, more artistic, newer and that would help the audience with its style to understand and the actress to create the kind of woman wanted? I think a purely optical suggestion can guide the audience toward a mood.]

Borelli’s suggestion indicates her involvement even in what could be considered secondary aspects of the production, as well as her understanding of the importance of the costumes in creating the character type desired. In another letter, Borelli guides the Cines producer in the choice of texts to be adapted into screenplays, revealing her understanding of which factors made certain texts more cinematic than others: Niobe 12 è una piccola cosa invecchiata, che ha una piccola comicità ingenua e del tutto verbale che in cinematografo non ha diritto di cittadinanza. Vi chiedo

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Here Borelli took on the roles of producer, director, and screenwriter, proposing texts of her liking for production and adapting them according to her own criteria. By discarding the first text for being too verbal, Borelli revealed, as Menichelli had also done, her understanding of the particularities of cinema acting, based solely on the mute gesture in this period, with respect to theater acting. Later in this chapter, I will discuss how Borelli’s acting style, famous precisely for its plasticity and repetition of gestures and poses, adheres to the pictorial style of cinematic acting. Fassini’s letters to Borelli reveal the high regard in which he held her as actress and confirm the collaborating role she took in the production of the films in which she starred. In his letters to the actress, Fassini allowed her to choose the roles as well as the stories that she preferred to interpret, choosing for example between D’Annunzio’s Trionfo della morte and Forse che sì, forse che no, 14 and to organize all production aspects to “utilizzare efficacemente tutto il vostro prezioso tempo” [use efficiently all your precious time] (Pantieri 1993, 57). Fassini also offered Borelli the possibility to choose her co-stars, deciding between well-known actors and actresses such as Mario Bonnard and Leda Gys, and even express her preference for the choice of director. In a letter dated February 20, 1917, Fassini responded to the actress’ request, evidently advanced in a previous letter, to remove Carmine Gallone as director of two future Cines films in which Borelli was to appear: “Non so se potrò togliere Gallone per i due soggetti. Per uno certo. Scrivimi se veramente non lo sopporti” [I don’t know if I will be able to take Gallone off the two films. For one, for sure. Write me if you truly can’t stand him] (Pantieri 1993, 58). In her letter dated March 1, 1917, Borelli replied: “se non potete assolutamente toglierlo lo sopporterò ancora per un soggetto. Ma conserva la vostra promessa per gli altri” [if you really can’t remove him I will bear him for another film. But keep your promise for the others] (Pantieri 1993, 59).

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The above exchange between Borelli and Fassini reveals the diva’s ability to advance demands, exhibiting her commanding role in the production of the film, even with regards to the film’s director. Borelli’s businesslike ability to manage her acting career is best reflected perhaps by her negotiation of a contract with an American film company in October 1917, as she communicated to Fassini in a letter dated from November 1917: “Verso il 7, 8 ottobre ho iniziato trattative con una Casa americana Cinem.ca su queste basi: scrittura di un anno, 10 films, 200.000 dollari, viaggio e spese di soggiorno pagati per me e due persone che fossero con me, automobile a mia disposizione” [Around October 7, 8, I started negotiations with an American production company Cinem.ca on these grounds: one year contract, 10 films, 200,000 dollars, travel and living expenses paid for me and two people with me, a car for my needs] (Pantieri 1993, 78). 15 Regardless of the prestige and economic rewards of such an offer, Borelli was quick to reassure Fassini that she would respect the conditions of her contract with Cines, maintaining a loyalty and correctness not easily found in the cinema industry according to the actress: “tutte le mie trattative americane e italiane sono state fatte contemplando l’esaurimento del mio contratto Cines. [. . .] Non ricordo di aver mai fatto in affari sia di teatro che di cinematografo imbrogli e scorrettezze, e che voi mi crediate già diventata così . . . cinematografica mi dispiace per me” [all my American and Italian negotiations have been made considering the end of my Cines contract. . . . I do not remember ever having done anything wrong or misleading in theater or cinema business affairs, and that you believe me already so . . . cinematic makes me sad] (Pantieri 1993, 78). EARLY CINEMATIC ADAPTATIONS OF FEMININITY AND ILLNESS: TIGRE REALE AND MALOMBRA In Pastrone’s 1916 film Tigre reale, 16 certain elements of the film’s plot differ significantly from Verga’s 1873 novel precisely to privilege the figure of the diva. In the novel, the diplomat Giorgio la Ferita is married to Erminia and they have a child; although tempted by the seductions of the Russian countess Nata, in the end of the novel Giorgio abandons Nata for his wife, leaving Nata to die alone of tuberculosis. In such a way, the family unit is preserved and the femme fatale is punished. In the film however, Erminia’s character is eliminated, replaced by a fiancée that interests Giorgio only to forget Nata, renamed Natka in the film, for whom moreover the film’s happy ending is reserved: having miraculously recovered from her terminal illness, she escapes the blazing fire of her hotel and the threats of her husband and sails happily into the sunset with Giorgio.

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Seducing Giorgio as well as other male characters in the film, Natka performs the exhibitionist and erotic role that, as Mulvey notes, has been traditionally reserved for women in film. Even more than the novel, the film accentuates illness as a central part of Natka’s seduction. From the very first scene in which she appears, a rather lengthy scene which presents her entering a room full of people at Palazzo de Rancy, she not only connotes “to-belooked-at-ness” but she is associated with illness and suffering, as Jandelli notes regarding the scene and its goals: La sua lunga durata non è solo motivata dalla necessità di presentare e mostrare la diva, serve a caratterizzare con immediatezza il personaggio di Natka: la Menichelli inspira vistosamente con aria sofferente, poi, come in apnea, si lancia in un sorriso che segna la sua entrata nello spazio funzionale del salotto mondano come frutto di un sapiente artificio. In una manciata di secondi Natka viene presentata come sofferente di tisi e amante della dissimulazione. (2006, 198) [Its length is not only motivated by the need to present and show the diva, it serves to portray right away Natka’s character: Menichelli breathes visibly pained, then as if in apnea, bursts into a smile that marks her entrance into the functional space of the worldly salon, the result of a skillful ploy. In a few seconds, Natka is presented as suffering from tuberculosis and lover of dissimulation.]

Natka’s malady and suffering is continuous throughout the film, from images of and allusions to physical ailments (heaving breathing, incessant coughing, migraines, fevers, and convulsions) and attempted cures (especially the scene where Natka doses the drops of morphine, deliberately taking more than recommended so that she can have enough strength to see Giorgio for what she thinks will be one last time) to images of psychological suffering (sighs, tears, and languishing poses). The film’s intertitles confirm Natka’s delicate physical state, with declarations such as: “E il riso ostinato e la convulsa tosse scuotono sì il fragile corpo ch’ella vacilla affranta e cade” [And the obstinate laugh and convulsive cough shake so much the fragile body that she sways exhausted and falls] and “La contessa pagò la passeggiata al chiaro di luna con qualche giorno di febbre” [The Countess paid for the moonlit walk with a few days of fever”]. The camera dwells on images of Natka’s suffering and illness, as in the scene in which she writes a farewell letter to Giorgio, when she must return to Russia with her husband. In this scene Menichelli acts out her suffering in dramatic gestures and poses: breathing heavily and with dark circles under her eyes, she collapses into an armchair, bringing her hands to her head and face, covering her eyes and then letting her arms drop down to the side. The words in her letter to Giorgio also confirm the gravity of her condition: “Voi

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sapete che poco mi resta di questa vita. Addio Giorgio! Vi faccio una promessa, verrò a morire vicino a voi” [You know I have little time left in this life. Goodbye Giorgio! I promise you, I will come to die near you]. The film even enacts Natka’s death as she appears to die from her illness, with her desperate lover at her side, only to come back to life in what Dalle Vacche refers to as a “utopian fantasy of romantic love” (2008, 124). Natka’s illness constitutes a major aspect of her appeal, is that which enables her to attract, win and keep the man she loves, but it also serves ultimately as a source of strength for this character, preserving and confirming her role as protagonist. In the film, Natka’s illness not only serves as a way of further rendering the centrality of this character, but also that of explaining and justifying her attitude and behavior. While the novel provides merely a brief reference to the origin of her tuberculosis (“mi ammalai lungo il viaggio, e quando giunsi a Pietroburgo dissero ch’ero etica” [I got sick during the journey, and when I reached Petersburg they said that I had tuberculosis] (Verga 1996, 333), the film explores the story behind her illness. Natka, introduced as the “Contessa russa che condusse alla morte l’ultimo amante” [Russian countess who led her last lover to death], is initially portrayed in the film as a cold and superficial woman who entertains her numerous male admirers merely as part of a game. In her early encounters with Giorgio, for example, Natka appears indifferent to his presence and in one episode, what is described as a capricious act on Natka’s part leads to the death of one of her suitors in a duel: “Si curò poi di sapere quale dei due uomini avesse pagato con la vita un suo capriccio da romana al circo?” [Did she care to know which of the two men had paid with his life her whim?]. Natka appears indifferent not only to love and even toward life, as in the scene when she ventures outside into the cold night without her coat, bringing about Giorgio’s reprimand: “Volete uccidervi? Così nella notte in décolleté?” [Do you want to kill yourself? Wearing this low-cut dress at night?]. Natka responds only by laughing and coughing. However, her behavior and illness only increase Giorgio’s interest in her: not only is he concerned for her health and tries to take care of her but he also seeks confirmation of her love for him. The motivation for Natka’s cold demeanor is explained in the film through Natka’s narration, accompanied visually through images, of the true love and then betrayal she experienced with her previous lover, an experience which left her not only “tisica” [suffering from tuberculosis], but jaded toward love (“Ecco cos’è l’amore” [This is what love is], Natka tells Giorgio). The film dedicates several scenes and intertitles to the evolution of Natka’s love affair in Russia with Dolski, an episode described only briefly in the novel. Martinelli notes as much when he writes that Tigre reale presents “uno sviluppo diseguale, poiché incastra nel racconto un lungo flash-back—l’episodio in Russia—che, seppur splendidamente realizzato, appare come autonomo rispetto al contesto dominante della vicenda” [an

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uneven development, as it includes in the story a long flashback—the episode in Russia—which, although beautifully done, appears to stand alone with respect to the dominant context of the story] (2009, 94). Natka and Dolski’s love affair ends when her husband, having discovered their relationship, has Dolski exiled to Siberia. Natka goes after her lover, only to find him with another woman, and the end is tragic for both: Natka’s lover commits suicide out of despair at her refusal to see him and Natka is afflicted with illness: “Quando lasciai il letto ero tisica, egli è morto, io sto morendo ancora” [When I left the bed I was sick with tuberculosis, he died, I am still dying]. In such a way, Natka’s illness provides her story—one that explains not only her illness, but her apparently cold and indifferent nature—which accounts for her resistance to falling in love again. Natka herself reveals her indifference to be a façade when she tells Giorgio, after an evening in company of guests, “quale tortura mentire tutta la sera” [what a torture lying all night]. After narrating her story to Giorgio, however, Natka overcomes her resistance to love. At the theater one evening, they kiss, only for her to reject him immediately after, saying, “Non vi amo! Mi disprezzo” [I don’t love you! I despise myself]. She later writes to him in a letter, “Vi ho respinto ed avrei voluto soffocarvi nelle mie braccia come una tigre gelosa. Vi amo!” [I rejected you and would have wanted to suffocate you in my arms like a jealous tiger. I love you!]. In the film’s ending, their love, or perhaps it is more correct to say Natka herself, conquers all: Natka’s illness, Giorgio’s engagement with another woman, and Natka’s marriage to a man she doesn’t love, who tries to kill her and Giorgio by locking them in the room of the blazing hotel. In such a way, the film resolves, by using illness to portray Natka’s story, the conflict present in the novel between Nata’s transgressive nature and actions and the need to punish her in the eyes of society. In the film, illness is not only, therefore, an element of seduction and appeal but also a means to create, for the diva, a central role for a strong female character that motivates her desires and choices, transgressive though they are. Martinelli notes that the “sovvertimento dei codici morali” [subversion of moral codes] in Tigre reale: “l’adulterio è legittimato; Natka spinge il suo amante a suicidarsi (‘Fallo! È bello!’), i valori borghesi appaiono completamente cancellati” [adultery is legitimate; Natka pushes her lover to commit suicide (“Do it! It’s nice!”), bourgeois values appear completely erased] (2009, 95). The diva is not held to respecting conventional modes of behavior, but instead creates her own, as Brunetta further confirms: La Diva, col suo comportamento, afferma nuovi diritti, travolge valori e modelli secolari, rivela nuove dimensioni dell’animo umano, ma più di tutto rivitalizza l’immaginazione romantica messa in crisi dalla cultura positivista e ne riafferma la contemporaneità in un’epoca che vede trionfare i modelli eroici,

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vitalistici e di una virilità che trova nella Guerra la più alta manifestazione di sé. (2009, 17) [The Diva, with her behavior, affirms new rights, overturns century-old values and models, reveals new dimensions of the human soul, but more than anything revitalizes the romantic imagination put into crisis by positivist culture and reaffirms its relevance in an age that witnesses the triumph of heroic, vitalistic models and a virility that finds in the Great War the highest manifestation of itself.]

Confirming her role as Mulvey’s representative of power in the film, in that it is she who advances the action of the story, Natka demonstrates her role as playing to a female gaze, offering onscreen identification for female spectators who find in her the realization of a woman who acts in her own interests and ultimately succeeds in obtaining what she wants. Carmine Gallone’s 1917 film Malombra, a cinematic version of Fogazzaro’s 1881 novel, presents diva Borelli in the role of the female protagonist Marina di Malombra, a young woman who comes to live in the castle of her uncle, Count Cesare d’Ormengo, on Lake Como. Also in this case, the plot of the film was modified and somewhat simplified to give full space to the diva. The film’s plot centers almost exclusively around Marina’s increasing conviction that she is the reincarnation of a family ancestor, Cecilia, who died enclosed within her room in the castle following accusations of infidelity. 17 The theme of Cecilia’s physical entrapment becomes Marina’s metaphorical entrapment: she is bound both by her uncle’s expectations of her as well as those of Cecilia, whose spirit pushes her to “compiere la vendetta” [carry out the vendetta] against Cecilia’s husband’s descendent, Marina’s uncle. Upon her arrival, Marina chooses what had been Cecilia’s room, described as “un gran brutto sito . . . un luogo maledetto . . . vi è morta prigioniera Cecilia” [a very ugly place . . . a damned place . . . Cecilia died imprisoned there]. Lengthy scenes are devoted to Marina’s discovery of Cecilia’s objects, including a letter announcing the reincarnation, and the diva’s reaction and gradual obsession with vendetta. As in the film Tigre reale, the portrayal of female illness, Marina’s madness verging upon hysteria, serves the function of privileging the figure of the diva, confirming her exhibitionist and erotic role, but also making her story central to the plot of the film. In a secret drawer of an old desk, Marina finds objects that had belonged to Cecilia, such as a mirror, book, glove, a lock of hair, and a letter announcing the theme of reincarnation: “Qualunque sia il tuo nome, tu che ài ritrovato e leggi queste parole, sappi che l’anima mia infelice rivive. . . . L’anima mia rivive in te, dovrà compiere la vendetta” [Whatever your name is, you who have found and read these words, know that my unhappy soul lives again. . . . My soul lives again in you, it must find revenge]. Marina is instantly captivated by the idea of reincarnation and revenge: “Il pensiero che

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l’anima di Cecilia viveva in lei per la vendetta esaltava già la sua mente” [The thought that Cecilia’s soul lived in her for revenge already exalted her mind]. Cinematic representation confirms the phenomenon of the reincarnation by superimposing the images of Cecilia and Marina on the screen. Not surprisingly, the first manifestation of Marina’s madness comes immediately after finding Cecilia’s objects. In a lengthy scene, lasting approximately eight minutes and at the end of which she faints, Marina appears obsessed and overcome, both physically and metaphorically, by the idea of reincarnation. Marina’s illness, however, serves to explore the dilemma of this female character as she struggles to find and determine the direction of her life. Dalle Vacche notes that Marina “drives herself insane because she has nothing to do all day except read Poe’s tales and take walks along the lake” (2008, 178–79). Marina’s inactivity is further developed through her inability to freely decide her future, presented in the scenes in which her uncle attempts to arrange her marriage to a wealthy relative. Marina initially agrees to the engagement, although expressing her frustration in private, only to delay the day of wedding so that she can complete Cecilia’s “vendetta.” Frustrated by her lack of control over her destiny, Marina succumbs to madness and the personal drama of Cecilia becomes that of Marina. Marina accomplishes, in fact, Cecilia’s revenge when she appears before her uncle claiming to be Cecilia: he is struck by a “male oscuro” [obscure illness] and later dies. It is important to note, however, that although she satisfies Cecilia’s fantasy of revenge, Marina also succeeds in freeing herself from the obligations and restrictions posed upon her by her uncle. In rejecting the life that had been set out for her by others, Marina declares, through her actions, her right to choose and determine her own fate. The representation of female oppression and madness in Malombra is further rendered through Borelli’s acting style, a style which even the actress herself admits was well-suited for portraying conditions of illness, as another episode from her epistolary exchange with Fassini reveals. In a letter by Fassini to Borelli dated February 20, 1917, the Cines director urges the actress to continue starring in films which allow her to perfect what he calls “il tipo psicologico” [the pyschological type] (Pantieri 1993, 58). In her response, Borelli agrees, choosing however a different term for the roles she often portrays: “Io direi patologico!” [I would say pathological!] (Pantieri 1993, 59). Borelli’s acting style was unique for its emphasis on the plasticity of the body and repetition of gestures. In the reincarnation scene, for example, Borelli appears alone for approximately eight minutes to act out the drama of the experience. To give more importance to the moment, Borelli repeats certain poses, such as bending her head back, often with closed eyes and slightly open mouth, bowing her head forward, putting one or two hands on her head or in her hair, kneeling and putting her hands on her hips with her face covered with hair. Brewster and Jacobs note, of Borelli’s acting style

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in the film Ma l’amor mio non muore!, that “[if] she wishes to stress a pose, she does not do so by holding it, but by coming back to it repeatedly” (1997, 116). Borelli reserves for the scene’s conclusion the most expressive and dramatic poses, such as crossing her arms over her chest and putting her hands around her neck, and just before she faints, raising her arms in the air above her head, a pose reserved usually only for moments of extreme drama. The gesture of putting her arms and hands on her neck reflects on a visual level her feeling of suffocation and oppression, metaphorically portraying pressure resulting from both the reincarnation and the need to satisfy her uncle’s expectations regarding her future. Borelli’s portrayal of Marina’s illness not only confirms the centrality of this female character and her “tobe-looked-at-ness” but also the centrality within the film of the diva and her unique acting style. In Italian Film, Landy notes that the diva belongs to early cinema because it is “invested in the affective character of the visual image and its relation to a particular style of existence” (2000, 267). Borelli’s acting style reflects her role as diva, whose main characteristics are beauty, seduction, decadence, and identification with a world of desire and passion, but also of transgression. Jandelli suggests that Gallone’s directing style further favored the figure of the diva and her acting style, as in the final scene in which Marina shoots her lover Silla, convinced, in her madness, that he is Cecilia’s lover and that he must pay for abandoning her: Invece di porre l’accento sul gesto di prendere una pistola dal cassone, che innesca l’azione drammatica e ne garantisce il climax, la regia di Gallone indugia sul lento avvicinamento di spalle dell’attrice al fondo della scena, inquadra la Borelli a figura intera e la lascia percorrere lo spazio che la separa dal cassone con esangue lentezza: è come se, ondeggiando obliquamente, vestita di una tunica nera, la figura si caricasse di energia per esplodere nel gesto finale esageratamente precipitoso. (2006, 118) [Instead of emphasizing the gesture of taking a gun from the chest, which triggers the dramatic action and guarantees the climax, Gallone’s directing lingers on the actress’s slow approach, her back to the camera, from the back of the scene, it frames Borelli’s full-length figure and allows her to cover the space that separates her from the chest with extreme slowness: it is as if, swaying obliquely, dressed in a black tunic, the figure charges itself with energy and then explodes in the overly rash final gesture.]

The film’s director, recognizing the centrality of the figure of the diva, leaves her ample space to “act out” her character and the drama of her situation, as in the final scene described above or the lengthy reincarnation scene referred to previously. Of all the divas of the period, Borelli’s acting style was regarded as unique and influential. 18 As Brunetta notes: “Lyda Borelli segna una tappa nella evoluzione del cinema muto italiano: dal suo modello di

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recitazione, dai suoi gesti più ricorrenti nasce una tipologia del gesto destinata a riprodursi, a ripetersi e a moltiplicarsi lungo l’arco di tutto il sistema cinematografico” [Lyda Borelli marks a milestone in the evolution of Italian silent cinema: from her acting style, from her most recurring gestures comes a typology of gesture destined to reproduce itself, repeat itself and multiply throughout the entire cinema system] (1993, 81). In Malombra we can note that Borelli’s role within the film as action-maker is confirmed not only by the actions of her character that advance the story of the film, but also by her acting style, which not only increases the focus on her character but helps tell her story. Like Natka in Tigre reale, Marina also plays to the female gaze by offering a story that “speaks” to women, one that offers an example of liberation from restrictive female roles. In Malombra, Marina’s illness, and Borelli’s recitation of it, ultimately functions as a tool and symbol of female empowerment against oppressive familial and social structures. The diva is a product of earlier models of femininity and a forerunner of mentalities to come. The divas of early Italian cinema threatened the mainstream order with their passion and transgression, as Landy notes in Italian Film: “In her acting, her gestures, her languid and sensual movements, her nuances of facial expression, and her attitudes that scorn conventional life, the diva embodies the enigmatic character of femininity, its ‘mystery,’ elusiveness, and threatening nature” (2000, 265). Dalle Vacche observes that the “diva’s corporeal plasticity was nothing else than a symptom of ambiguity and uncertainty about breaking away from the past and moving into the future” (2008, 3). She was caught between two eras, between nineteenthcentury decadentism and theories on denigrated femininity, of which she was in part a product, and twentieth-century female emancipation, for which she was a model. The era of the diva was short-lived, as Brunetta notes: “nell’arco di poco più di un quinquennio, a cavallo della Grande Guerra, si assiste al battesimo, all’ascesa rapidissima e trionfale e al suo declino catastrofico e irreversibile” [in the span of just over a five-year period, spanning the Great War, we witness its baptism, fast and triumphant rise, and catastrophic and irreversible decline] (2009, 13). The diva was a liminal figure, destined to disappear with the advent of a new era. NOTES 1. The 1913 film Ma l’amor mio non muore! by director Mario Caserini and starring Lyda Borelli is widely considered by critics to be the first diva film. Other divas of the period include, among others, Leda Gys, Diana Karenne, Hesperia, Italia Almirante Manzini, Maria Jacobini, and Vera Vergani. See Jandelli 2007, 38, and 2006, 22. 2. See Jandelli 2006, 185, and Martinelli 2009, 20–23. 3. See Susan Rutherford’s The Prima Donna and Opera, 1815–1930 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009) for a discussion of the operatic diva. 4. At the time of publication, this article was forthcoming.

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5. Lyda Borelli, Pina Menichelli, and Francesca Bertini were all born into families of actors and started their careers as theatrical actresses. 6. Giulio Aristide Sartòrio (1860–1932) was an Italian painter whose works, such as Le vergini savie e le vergini folli , Diana d’Efeso e gli schiavi , and La Gorgone e gli eroi , featured Pre-Raphaelite portrayals of women. 7. It is widely acknowledged that the character of Foscarina is based upon that of real life actress Eleanora Duse, with whom D’Annunzio had an affair during the years of the writing of Il fuoco. 8. Menichelli’s most recent film at the time, released in February of 1919. 9. The Società Italiana Cines, founded in Rome in 1906, was one of the leading film companies in early twentieth-century Italy specializing in production and distribution of films. The Baron Alberto Fassini was general director of Cines from 1910 to 1918. In 1919 Cines merged with Unione Cinematografica Italiana and ceased operations completed in 1921. 10. There are letters by Il Resto del Carlino editor Angelo Giordani, musical composer Ruggero Leoncavallo, and screenwriter Campos Rodriguez Carvalho. 11. Fassini and Borelli never completed the film Forse che sì, forse che no, perhaps due to the censorship’s rejection of the story, as noted in a letter by Fassini to Borelli dated March 12, 1917 (Pantieri 1993, 61). The following year Borelli’s short-lived but intense cinematic career came to an abrupt end when she retired from working in cinema after her marriage to Count Giorgio Cini. 12. Marialuisa Grilli notes that Borelli refers to a play either by U. Vasé (1909) or Romain Rolland (1889). 13. George Ohnet (1848–1918) was a French novelist, journalist, and playwright. 14. Ivo Blom notes that Forse che sì, forse che no held special interest for the actress as well as audiences of the time due to the “fascino per i nuovi mezzi di trasporto e la loro velocità, glorificato nel romanzo” [fascination for new means of transportation and their speed, glorified in the novel] (2010, 78). Blom notes further regarding Borelli’s interest that the actress “volò davvero ad un airshow a Rimini, davanti alla costernazione di tutti, perché volare allora equivaleva a una specie di roulette russa” [flew for real in an airshow in Rimini, to everyone’s dismay, because flying at that time was the equivalent of a kind of Russian roulette] (2010, 78–79). 15. Borelli never went to America to fulfill the contract; instead she retired from the film industry in 1918 when she married Count Giorgio Cini. 16. The rights to Tigre reale were purchased in 1912 by Itala Film. After the success of the film Il fuoco in 1915, Pastrone decided to use Verga’s novel Tigre reale as the basis for his next film the following year. As noted above, while Pastrone’s film follows only loosely the plot of the novel, it adheres rigidly to much of its dialogue, which, as Vittorio Martinelli notes, “risulta cinematograficamente inappropriato e talvolta risibile” [is cinematographically inappropriate and sometimes laughable] (2009, 94). 17. In the novel, lengthy scenes and whole sections are dedicated to the male protagonist Corrado Silla as well as minor characters such as Andreas Steinegge, the count’s secretary, and his daughter Edith. 18. Antonio Gramsci went so far as to argue that Lyda Borelli’s acting style was so unique as to be inexistent. See Pantieri 1993, 95.

Conclusion

As discussed in the beginning of this book, theories on the principle of natural selection served as a lens for interpreting human reality in fin de siècle Europe, justifying the competition between and often subjugation of certain “inferior” groups within society, such as women, but also the delinquent and the disabled. Following from fundamental ideas of superiority and inferiority among the species, scientists posited female inferiority as tied to natural factors, particularly women’s reproductive function, and constituted women’s subordination in society as a law of nature. Scientific and philosophical works of the period asserted both female inferiority and tendency toward sexual passivity, thereby confirming women’s place within the family as wives and mothers and the home as the sole realm for female sexuality, destined exclusively for reproduction. Fin de siècle European positivist science presented the physical evidence of women’s physical and mental inferiority, asserting that women were unsuitable to fulfill intellectually challenging roles and at the same time arguing for woman’s place within the home as mother. Although the period was marked by an increased awareness by many of women’s social, political, and juridical inequality, the tendency to justify female subordination to men within society was prevalent. Gloria Steinem notes that nineteenth-century scientific conclusions on women’s inferiority “squared with other mainstream scholarly conclusions of the day. From anthropology to neurology, science had demonstrated that the female Victorian virtues of passivity, domesticity, and greater morality (by which was meant less sexual activity) were rooted in female biology” (1992, 130–31). After an overview of nineteenth-century European scientific discourse on women’s biological functions and malfunctions, the main focus of this study has been to analyze the portrayal of female illness in Italian fin de siècle literature and early cinema as a lens for interpreting the female reality of the 121

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time. As part of this analysis, two categories within the literary representation of female illness were identified: novels in which sickness represents the consequence for women who transgress traditional societal roles, positing women as powerless victims who succumb to illness due to society’s pressures and limitations, as opposed to novels which suggest sickness as a form of agency for women by depicting illness as a chosen form of behavior and therefore a means for women to take control of their bodies and demonstrate self-mastery. Literary representation of the diseased female body has been interpreted as an expression of contemporary anxiety over shifting ideologies of gender in fin de siècle Italy. In “Seduzione e malattia nella narrativa Italiana postunitaria,” Luciano Curreri notes, in fact, that illness was “una metafora che, in molti romanzi italiani del secondo Ottocento, interviene per esorcizzare la paura del femminile” [a metaphor that, in many Italian novels of the second half of the nineteenth century, is used to exorcise the fear of the feminine] (1992, 53). By examining novels in which malady became the vehicle for expressing the pressure and limitations to which women were subjected as well as novels that portrayed women who performed illness as achieving self-mastery, this study has shown how female illness was effective in bringing to light situations of social injustice for women of the time as well as providing a means of female agency. Common to both categories in the literary representation of female illness is the significant attention to the psychology of the female character as well as that of the male character, particularly the male character’s understanding of female affliction. Not only did male characters question themselves on the nature of their beloved’s illness, they were often attracted to and sometimes even susceptible to it. This privileging of individual perspectives and questioning of female affliction can be seen, at least in part, to reflect a shift within Italian society regarding gender roles and relations as women began in this period to demand and obtain more equal standing in their relationships with men, at least on emotional and personal levels. This study has also examined how illness continued to be present in early Italian cinema of the 1910s. In the films Tigre reale and Malombra, illness grants centrality to the female character. By placing the diva, her illness, and her point of view at the center of the film’s action, these films posit the female character as the active one in advancing the film’s story, thus providing a progressive model of femininity for female Italian viewers and an early example of the female gaze in Italian cinema. Darwinist interpretations of female inferiority, scientific classification of women’s predisposition to nervous disorders and the literary and cinematic representation of female illness in its various forms all contributed to the ways in which women’s image and role within society were manipulated in this period. This volume has examined how performing sickness offered

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women a way to “own” illness and become masters not only of their bodies but also of their stories and destinies.

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———. L’indomani. Palermo: Sellerio, 1990. Nicolosi, Francesco. Questioni verghiane. Roma: Ateneo, 1969. Odorisio, Maria Linda and Monica Turi. Donna o cosa? I movimenti femminili in Italia dal Risorgimento a oggi. Torino: Milvia Carrà, 1991. Oppenheim, Janet. Shattered Nerves. Doctors, Patients, and Depression in Victorian England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Pagano, Tullio. Experimental Fictions: From Emile Zola’s Naturalism to Giovanni Verga’s Verism. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson Press, 1999. Pampaloni, Geno. “Introduzione.” In Giacinta e altri racconti, by Luigi Capuana, 5–21. Novara: Edizioni per il Club del Libro, 1972. Pantieri, José. Lyda Borelli. Roma: MICS, 1993. Pasquale, Vittoria. Sulla prosa narrativa di Matilde Serao. Napoli: Liguori, 1989. Payne, Joseph Frank. Thomas Sydenham. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1900. Pieroni Bortolotti, Franca. Alle origini del movimento femminile in Italia. 1848–1892. Torino: Einaudi, 1963. Platone. Timeo. Edited by Giuseppe Lozza. Milano: Mondadori, 1994. Pullen, Kristen. Actresses and Whores: On Stage and in Society. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Praz, Mario. La carne, la morte e il diavolo nella letteratura romantica. Milano: RCS Libri, 1999. Richards, Evelleen. “Darwin and the Descent of Women.” In The Wider Domain of Evolutionary Thought, edited by David Oldroyd and Ian Langham, 57–111. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1983. Robinson, Michael. “Acting Women: The Performing Self and the Late Nineteenth Century.” Comparative Criticism, 14 (1991): 3–24. Rosa, Giovanna. La narrativa degli Scapigliati. Roma: Laterza, 1997. Russo, Mary. The Female Grotesque. New York: Routledge, 1994. Rutherford, Susan. The Prima Donna and Opera, 1815–1930. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Scappaticci, Tommaso. Introduzione a Serao. Roma: Laterza, 1995. Serao, Matilde. “Patologia acquatica.” Capitan Fracassa, IV.191 (1883): 1. ———. Cuore infermo. Roma: Lucarini, 1988. ———. Fantasia. Milano: Otto/novecento, 2010. Showalter, Elaine. A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977. ———. The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830–1980. New York: Pantheon, 1985. Spackman, Barbara. Decadent Genealogies: The Rhetoric of Sickness from Baudelaire to D’Annunzio. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989. Steinem, Gloria. Revolution from Within: A Book of Self Esteem. New York: Open Road, 1992. Szasz, Thomas S. The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct. New York: Harper & Row, 1974. Tarchetti, Igino Ugo. Una nobile follia. Fosca. Firenze: Valecchi, 1971. ———. Fosca. Milano: Mondadori, 1981. ———. L’amore nell’arte. Firenze: Passigli, 1992. Varaldo, Alessandro. Profili d’attrici e d’attori. Firenze: Barbèra, 1926. Veith, Ilza. Hysteria: The History of a Disease. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965. Venuti, Lawrence. Introduction. In Passion, by Iginio Ugo Tarchetti, v–xvi. Translated by Lawrence Venuti. London: One World Classics, 2009. Verdone, Mario. “La recitzaione ‘Liberty.’” In Lyda Borelli, edited by Guiseppe Pantieri, 15–24. Roma: M.I.C.S., 1993. Verga, Giovanni. I romanzi brevi e tutto il teatro. Roma: Newton, 1996. Weininger, Otto. Sesso e carattere. Roma: Mediterranee, 1992. Wood, Mary. Italian Cinema. Oxford: Berg, 2005. Zola, Emile. Le roman expérimental. Paris: Charpentier, 1881. ———. Thérèse Raquin. Milano: Mondadori, 2009.

Index

affectation of illness by women in literature, 1–2, 4, 5, 67–88 Alacci, Tito, 102–104 Albertine Statute, 26 Aleramo, Sibilla, 62–65 alienation, 41, 49, 51, 54; Tarchetti’s writing, 67–73 L’avvelenatrice (De Zerbi), 81–82 Bassanese, Flora, 62–63 Beard, George Miller, 15 beauty, in Fosca, 67–73 Beccari, Gualberta Alaide, 27 Bertini, Francesca. See divas in Italian cinema biology: limitations on women, 10–12. See also physiological and biological deficiencies of women Boine, Giovanni, 30–32 Borelli, Lyda, 115–118; letters of, 107–111, 118. See also divas in Italian cinema Borgese, Giuseppe Antonio, 29, 30 Borghi legislation (1875), 23 Breuer, Joseph, 22 Brewster, Ben, 99 Briquet, Pierre, 20–21 Brunetta, Gian Piero, 114–115 Cabiria, 6n6 Capuana, Luigi, 29, 33, 35, 43–48

Carcano Law, 26 Casati Law (1859), 23 Il Castigo (Neera), 55 Cavalli Pasini, A. M., 10, 32 Charcot, Jean Martin, 20–22, 102 cinema. See divas in Italian cinema Cixous, Hélène and Catherine Clément, 48 Clément, Catherine, 48 Comte, Aguste, 7–9 confinement, as cause for illness, 48–51 convent life, 38–40 Cours de philosophie positive (Comte), 7–9 craniology, 10 criticism, literary, 27–31; opposition to emancipation movement, 28–30 Croce, Benedetto, 29 Cullen, William, 15 Cuore Infermo (Serao), 1–2, 75–77 Dali, Salvador, 94–95 Dalle Vacche, Angela, 95, 96 D’Annunzio, Gabriele, 6n6, 83–88, 99–100, 104–105 Darwin, Charles R.: on inferiority of women, 8–9; influences on, 8–9. See also Darwinism Darwinism, 2; Lombroso’s theories, 11–12; male superiority and, 8–10. See also naturalism DeBenedetti, Giacomo, 38 131

132

Index

degeneration (mental), 17 de Goncourt, Edmond, 33 de Goncourt, Jules, 33 Delpeut, Peter, 95 denigration of women within scientific circles, 3 The Descent of Man (Darwin), 9 De Zerbi, Rocco, 81–82 Diamond, Elin, 102 Dijkstra, Bram, 27 Diva: Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema (Dalle Vacche), 95 Diva Dolorsa (Delpeut), 95 divas in Italian cinema, 5, 93–118; acting styles of, 98–100, 102, 117; as businesswomen, 104–111; as feminist models, 96–97; liberation from guilt, 93–118; scientific, cultural, and artistic models for, 101–104; Tigre reale, 111–115 Dizionario d’igiene per le famiglie (Mantegazza & Neera), 15–17, 17 domestic roles. See maternal and reproductive role of women Una Donna (Aleramo), 62–65 La donna delinquente, la prostituta e la donna normale (Lombroso and Ferrero), 10–12, 13, 101 La donna e i suoi rapporti sociali (Mozzoni), 25–26 La donna (journal), 27–28 Dora, Freud’s study of, 22–23 Duse, Eleonora, 99 education for women in nineteenth century Italy, 23 emancipation of women and emancipation movement: in Faldella’s writing, 49–51; financial independence of women, 24, 26; journals and, 27–28; Mantegazza on, 17–18; Mozzoni and, 25–26; opposition in literary circles, 28–31; suffrage, women’s, 26. See also divas in Italian cinema; feminist movement emotional and sentimental traits of women, 8, 14–15 employment of women, 26 empowerment by feigning illness, 67–88

entrapment, 48–51, 62–65 evolutionism, 7; opposition to emancipation movement, 28–29. See also Darwinism expectations. See transgressive behavior, illness as consequence of failure. See transgressive behavior, illness as consequence of Faldella, Giovanni, 51–54 falsehoods, women’s tendencies toward, 102 Fantasia (Serao), 77–81 fashionable illness. See affectation of illness by women in literature Fassini, Alberto, 107–111, 116 fear, 72, 73, 85; and hysteria, 52, 88 feigning illness. See affectation of illness by women in literature The Female Malady (Showalter), 15 feminist movement, 3, 8; cinema divas and, 96–97. See also emancipation of women and emancipation movement Ferrero, G., 10–12, 13, 101 Ferruggia, Gemma, 26 financial independence of women, 24, 26 Fleurs du mal (Baudelaire), 34 Fogazzaro, Antonio, 48–51 Fosca (Tarchetti), 67–73 Foucault, Michel, 17 Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (Freud), 22–23 French naturalism and feminie pathology, 33 Freud, Sigmund, 22–23, 102 fulfillment, women’s, 3; hysteria caused by lack of, 55–62. See also emancipation of women and emancipation movement; maternal and reproductive role of women Il fuoco (D’Annunzio), 88, 99–100, 104–105 Galen of Pergamum, 18 Gazzetta Letteraria, 30 Germinie Lacerteux (de Goncourt and de Goncourt), 33 Ghione, Emilio, 96–97 Giacinta (Capuana), 33, 43–44

Index Gilbert, Sandra, 26 Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 15 Girelli-Carasi, Fabio, 63 Gothic genre in literature, 34–35 Gubar, Susan, 27 guilt. See shame and guilt History of Madness (Foucault), 17 horror, in literature, 34–35 hysteria, 18–23; as contagious to men, 72–74, 81–82, 85; etymology of term, 18; in Faldella’s writing, 49–51; fear and, 52, 88; in Fogazzaro’s writing, 49–51; French naturalism and, 33; lack of fulfillment as cause of, 55–58; liberation from guilt for behavior, 93–118; literary portrayal of, 4; motherhood, caused by sacrifice from, 62–65; Neera’s writings, 55–62; photographic documentation of, 21–22; sexual desire, illness caused by repression of, 55–65, 76–77; Tarchetti’s writing, 67–73; tendencies toward, 102 hysterika, hysterikos. See hysteria Iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière (Charcot), 21–22 L’Idea Liberale (journal), 12 Idols of Perversity (Dijkstra), 27 imprisonment, as cause for illness, 48–51 independence. See emancipation of women and emancipation movement L’indomani (Neera), 58–60 inferiority of women, 2, 7–35; Comte, Aguste on, 7–9; naturalism and, 9; positivism and, 7; reproductive organs and functions, links to, 2–3; scientific attention to, 2–3 infidelity: feigned illness and, 77–81; illness as punishment for, 40–44 Innocente, Giovanni, 107 Jacobs, Lea, 99 Jandelli, Cristina, 117 journalistic professions, women as writers, 13, 26–31 journals: theories on inferiority of women in, 12; women’s, 27

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Kahane, Claire, 20 King, Helen, 18 Kuliscioff, Anna, 26 Landy, Marcia, 51 Lanza Law of 1865, 26 Lega Promotrice degli interessi femminili, 26 La letteratura della nuova Italia, 29 Levin, Kenneth, 18 literary criticism. See criticism, literary literary journals, theories on inferiority of women in, 12 literary professions, women as writers, 13, 26–31 Littré, Emile, 19 Lombroso, Cesare, 10–12, 13, 101 Madonna di fuoco e madonna di neve (Faldella), 51–54 The Madwoman in the Attic (Gilbert and Gubar), 27 maladies, female. See hysteria; neurosis male hysteria, 72–74, 81–82, 85, 90n5, 90n6 male role, traditional, 73–74; in films, 93–94 male superiority, Darwinist concept of, 8–10 Malombra (film), 115–118 Malombra (Fogazzaro), 5, 48–51, 93 manipulation. See affectation of illness by women in literature Mantegazza, Paolo, 15–18 marriage, 58–60. See also maternal and reproductive role of women masculinity and male attributes in women, 13, 14, 17, 22, 51; feigning illness as, 67; in writing, 29–30, 52 maternal and reproductive role of women: Aleramo’s writings, 62–65; as antagonistic, 45–48; Darwin on, 9; dichotomy of, 3; emancipation movement opposition, 28–29; Lombroso on, 11–12; Mantegazza and Neera on, 17–18; Moebius’ theories, 13; Neera’s writings, 55–62; Risorgimento movement, 25; sterility, freedom of, 88; Tarchetti’s writing,

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Index

71–72 Menichelli, Pina, 105–107, 111–115. See also divas in Italian cinema mental illnesses, 10. See also hysteria; nervous disorders; neurosis Mill, John Stuart, 9 Moebius, Paul Julius, 13 moral pathology, illness as punishment for, 43–44 movies. See divas in Italian cinema Mozzoni, Anna Maria, 25–26 Mulvey, Laura, 5, 93–94 naturalism: inferiority of women and, 9; Malombra (Fogazzaro), 48–51; Moebius’ theories, 13. See also Darwinism natural selection, 9. See also Darwinism Neera: Dizionario d’igiene per le famiglie, 15–17, 17; masculinity noted in literary criticism of, 29; opposition to emancipation movement, 6n3, 28; personal issues, 61–62; writings, 55–62 nervous disorders, 10, 15–22. See also hysteria; neurosis “nervous energy” theory, 15 neurasthenia, 15 neurosis, 15–18; in Capuana’s writings, 43–44, 45–48; definition, 15; as feigned behavior, artificial behavior, 1–2; seduction, affectation of illness for, 67–88. See also hysteria nevrosismo, 15. See also neurosis The Newly Born Woman (Cixous and Clément), 48 newspapers, women’s, 27 nun, vocation as, 38–40 On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life (Darwin), 9 opera, divas and, 98 Oppenheim, Janet, 2–3, 67 on Darwin, 9 Partito Operaio Italiano, 26 passion: as cause for illness, 2, 40–44, 49–51; illness as punishment for, 45–48

Pastrone, Giovanni, 105 pathology, feminine, 33 patriarchical oppression: as cause of hysteria, 55–58, 59; Serao’s writings, 74–81 perceived faults. See transgressive behavior, illness as consequence of performance art. See divas in Italian cinema Per l’arte (Capuana), 33 photographic documentation of hysteria, 21–22 physiological and biological deficiencies of women, 7; hysteria, history of, 18–20; Lombroso on, 10–12; Moebius’ theories, 13. See also inferiority of women poets, women as, 13 political journals, theories on inferiority of women in, 12 positivism, 2; opposition to emancipation movement, 28–29. See also naturalism Praz, Mario, 34, 67 Profumo (Capuana), 45–48 Pullen, Kristen, 5, 101 punishment. See transgressive behavior, illness as consequence of rebellion, female, 4, 38–40, 51–54; sacrifice and, 62–65. See also emancipation of women and emancipation movement; transgressive behavior, illness as consequence of religious devotion, 78, 80; vocation as nun, 38–40 repression: of sexual desire as cause for hysteria, 55–62; of women, 10, 12. See also emancipation of women and emancipation movement; maternal and reproductive role of women reproductive role. See maternal and reproductive role of women rest cure treatment, 15 Richards, Evelleen, 9 right to vote, women’s, 26 Risorgimento movement, 24–25 Robinson, Michael, 101 Roman Catholic Church: nun, vocation as, 38–40; on roles for women, 24

Index Le roman experimental (Zola), 32 Russo, Mary, 71 sacrifice by women, 62–65 “salotti patriottici,” 24–25 Sannia, Alberto, 105 scapigliatura movement, 34–35, 69–70 Schiff, Paolina, 26 science and society, 9–10. See also Darwinism; naturalism; positivism scientific journals, theories on inferiority of women in, 12 Il secolo nevrosico (Mantegazza), 18 self-mastery, feigning illness as, 67 Serao, Matilde, 1–2, 6n3, 74–81; masculinity noted in literary criticism of, 29–30; opposition to emancipation movement, 28 Sex and Character (Weininger), 14–15 sexuality, female: Aleramo’s writings, 62–65; eroticization of illness, 76–77, 83, 84–85; feigned illness and, 75–77; Freud on, 22–23; illness as punishment for, 45–48, 49–51; illness caused by repression of, 55–62, 62–65; Lombroso’s theories, 11; Neera’s writings, 45–48, 55–62; seduction, affectation of illness for, 67–88; and ugliness, 67–73 shame and guilt, 43–44, 57; cinema divas, liberation from guilt for behavior, 93–118 shortcomings, female. See transgressive behavior, illness as consequence of Showalter, Elaine, 15 social and legal status of women, 23–31. See also emancipation of women and emancipation movement social factors affecting women: Freud and Breuer, 22; Lombroso’s theories, 12 Spackman, Barbara, 83, 85 spinster, hysteria of, 55, 55–58 sterility, reproductive, 85, 87–88 Storia di una capinera (Verga), 38–40 Studies on Hysteria (Freud & Breuer), 22

135

The Subjection of Women (Mill), 9 subordination of the sexes: positivism and, 7–8. See also inferiority of women suffrage, women’s, 26 suicide, 44, 54, 80 Syndenham, Thomas, 19–20 Tarchetti, Igino Ugo, 35, 67–73, 89n1 Teresa (Neera), 55–58 theater acting, influence on divas of cinema, 98–100, 102 Thérèse Raquin (Zola), 32 Tigre reale (film), 111–115 Tigre reale (Verga), 5, 40–42, 93 traditional roles for women. See maternal and reproductive role of women transgressive behavior, illness as consequence of, 4, 37–65; cinema divas, previous interpretations of, 94–95 Trionfo della morte (D’Annunzio), 83–87 tuberculosis, 40–42, 53, 75–77, 78, 89n1; depiction in film, 94–95 ugliness, in Fosca, 67–73 Varaldo, Alessandro, 102, 103, 104 Verga e il naturalism (DeBenedetti), 38 Verga, Giovanni, 33, 37–42 verist movement, 32, 33 victimization. See transgressive behavior, illness as consequence of La Voce, 30 “wandering womb.”. See hysteria Weininger, Otto, 14–15, 31 Whytt, Robert, 20 womb, disease of. See hysteria writers, women as, 13, 26–31 “The Yellow Wallpaper” (Gilman), 15 Zappia, Carlo, 106–107 Zola, Emile, 32, 33 Zuccari, Anna Radius. See Neera

About the Author

Catherine Ramsey-Portolano is associate professor and program director of Italian studies at The American University of Rome in Rome, Italy. She holds a BA (University of Tennessee, Knoxville), MA (University of Wisconsin, Madison), Laurea (LUMSA University, Rome), and PhD (University of Chicago) in Italian literature. Her principal areas of research are gender studies, nineteenth- and twentieth-century Italian literature, with a focus on Italian women writers and the representation of femininity, and Italian film from the early and fascist periods. She has published articles and contributed to edited volumes on Italian cinema and various Italian women writers, most notably Neera, co-editing a special issue of The Italianist dedicated to the writer entitled Rethinking Neera (2010). She has also edited the volume The Future of Italian Teaching: Media, New Technologies and Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives (2015).

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